BYU SPEECHES OF THE YEAR, 1990-91



                           Table of Contents



  NO LESS SERVICEABLE

	Howard W. Hunter



  KEEPING AN OPEN MIND ABOUT THINGS THAT MATTER.

	Rex E. and Janet G. Lee



  WAITING UPON THE LORD

	Henry B. Eyring



  OUT OF YOUR EXPERIENCE HERE

	Gordon B. Hinckley



  ONE OUT OF MANY

	Francis M. Gibbons



  "WHAT WILL YOU MAKE ROOM FOR IN YOUR WAGON?"

	Ardeth G. Kapp



  STANDARDS OF STANDARD-BEARERS OF THE LORD

	Russell M. Nelson



  THE CONSTITUTION AND THE RESTORATION

	Rex E. Lee



  LIKENING THE SCRIPTURES UNTO US

	Dean L. Larsen



  "I SAY UNTO YOU, BE ONE"

	Boyd K. Packer



  GETTING TO KNOW CHINA

	Dallin H. Oaks



  "IN HIM ALL THINGS HOLD TOGETHER"

	Neal A. Maxwell



  "SIMON, I HAVE SOMEWHAT TO SAY UNTO THEE": JUDGMENT AND CONDEMNATION

IN THE PARABLES OF JESUS

	Catherine Corman Parry



  THEM AND US

	Elaine L. Jack



  "TAKING SWEET COUNSEL"

	J. Bonner Ritchie



  LIVE TO MAKE GOOD MEMORIES

	George I. Cannon



  EDUCATION: MOLDING CHARACTER

	Robert L. Beckman









                                NO LESS

                             SERVICEABLE"

                           Howard W. Hunter



     Howard W. Hunter is the President of the Council of the Twelve

     Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This

     fireside address was delivered on 2 September 1990 in the Marriott

     Center.



	It is a delight to be with you tonight in the first eighteen-stake

fireside of the new academic year.  I am aware that in the audience are

many Brigham Young University students, Utah Valley Community College

students, and young adults from other schools and locations in the

valley.  Thank you for your attendance and for letting me visit with

you tonight.



	I want you to know that my own children--and now my

grandchildren--have attended Brigham Young University.  From time to

time I have spoken with them about some of the challenges that come at

this time in a young person's life, and this is what I would like to do

with you tonight.  If you are willing, please allow me to speak to you

as my "family." I love you as if you were all mine, and there may be

someone here tonight with a need for fatherly-or grandfatherly-advice. 

I want to encourage you and hope you will receive what I have to say in

that spirit.



Part of God's Army



	Let me begin with a well-known verse from the Book of Mormon about

the young and valiant Captain Moroni.  It was said of him:



	If all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto

Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever;

yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children

of men. [Alma 48:171]



	What a compliment to a famous and powerful man.  I can't imagine a

finer tribute from one man to another.  Two verses later is a statement

about Helaman and his brethren, who played a less conspicuous role than

Moroni, that reads:



	Now behold, Helaman and his brethren were no less serviceable unto

the people than was Moroni. [Alma 48:19]



	In other words, even though Helaman was not as noticeable or

conspicuous as Moroni, he was as serviceable; that is, he was as

helpful or useful as Moroni.



	Obviously we could profit greatly by studying the life of Captain

Moroni.  He is an example of faith, service, dedication, commitment,

and many other godly attributes.  I could spend all of the brief time

we have tonight speaking of this magnificent man, but instead I have

chosen to focus on those who are not seen in the limelight or do not

receive the attention of the world, yet are "no less serviceable," as

the scripture phrased it.



	Unless I miss my guess, some of you are going to feel a little

lost this coming year, perhaps a little lonely and forgotten.  That may

be especially true of the freshmen or maybe those just back from

missions or those facing other changes in their patterns of life.  Not

everyone at school is going to be the student body president or the

Relief Society president or the teacher of the elders quorum.  Not all

of you are going to be like Moroni, catching the acclaim of your

colleagues all day every day.  No, most will be quiet, relatively

unknown folks who come and go and do their work without fanfare.  To

those of you who may find that lonely or frightening or just

unspectacular, I say you are "no less serviceable" than the most

spectacular of your associates.  You, too, are part of God's army.



	I know none of you thinks about such things as you eagerly lock

yourself in the library for solid study, but I am told the football

season is upon us.  Furthermore, I am told that we have a talented

young quarterback.  I said I was going to be your grandfather tonight,

but that doesn't mean I don't read the sports page! However, in light

of tonight's message, I am reminded of the contribution of each and

every player to the success of any team.



	Understandably enough, the quarterback is often given more

attention and media coverage than the other players, but his skill,

learning, and efforts would be of little value if the other players did

not do their share and play their part.  Imagine what would happen if,

on each play of the, game, the guard, or one of the other offensive

linemen, walked off the field or laid down on the job or gave up his

effort to protect the quarterback.  What if the rest of the team

decided not to put forth their very best effort? The answer of course

is obvious.  The quarterback could contribute nothing to the success of

the team.



	Like the offensive linemen and other unsung heroes on the football

team, most of us, including most of you, may spend much of our life in

giving service in relative obscurity.  Consider the profound service of

a mother or father-what they give in the quiet anonymity of a worthy

Latter-day Saint home.  Think of the gospel doctrine teachers and

Primary choristers and Scoutmasters and Relief Society visiting

teachers who serve and bless millions but whose names will never be

publicly applauded or featured in the nation's media.



	Think of the staff of the Marriott Center tonight who prepared

this building, set up the podium, and control the lights and the

temperature and the microphone.  It is a massive undertaking by scores

of people whose names you don't even know and who get little public

praise.  The same thing is true of the policemen who will direct the

traffic as we leave here and the custodians who are preparing your

classrooms for the new year.  Tens of thousands of unseen people make

possible our opportunities and happiness every day.  As the scriptures

state, they too are "no less serviceable" than those whose lives are on

the front page of life's newspapers.



Unsung Heroes



	The limelight of history and contemporary attention so often focus

on the "one" rather than the many.  Individuals are frequently singled

out from their peers and elevated as heroes.  I acknowledge that this

kind of attention is one way to identify that which the people admire

or hold to be of some value.  But sometimes that recognition is not

deserved or may even celebrate the wrong values.  This presents us with

the challenge of choosing our heroes and examples wisely, while also

giving thanks for those legions of friends and citizens who are not so

famous but who are "no less serviceable" than the Moronis of our lives.



	Perhaps you could consider with me some interesting people from

the scriptures who did not receive the limelight of attention but who,

through the long lens of history, have proven themselves to be truly

heroic.



	Many who read the story of the great prophet Nephi almost

completely miss another valiant son of Lehi whose name was Sam.  Nephi

is one of the most famous figures in the entire Book of Mormon.  But

Sam? Sam's name is mentioned only ten times in the scriptures.  When

Lehi counseled and blessed his posterity, he said to Sam:



	Blessed art thou [Sam], and thy seed; for thou shalt inherit the

land like unto thy brother Nephi.  And thy seed shall be numbered with

his seed; and thou shalt be even like unto thy brother, and thy seed

like unto his seed; and thou shalt be blessed in all thy days. [2 Nephi

4:11]



	Sam's role was basically one of supporting and assisting his more

acclaimed younger brother, and he ultimately received all the blessings

promised to Nephi and his posterity.  Nothing promised to Nephi was

withheld from the faithful Sam, yet we know very little of the details

of his service and contribution.  He was almost an unknown in life, but

he is obviously a triumphant leader and victor in the annals of

eternity.



	Many make their contributions in unsung ways.  Ishmael traveled

with the family of Nephi at great personal sacrifice, suffering "much

affliction, hunger, thirst, and fatigue" (I Nephi 16:35).  Then, in the

midst of all of these afflictions, he perished in the wilderness.  Few

of us can even begin to understand the sacrifice of such a man in those

primitive times and conditions.  Perhaps if we were more perceptive and

understanding, we too would mourn as his daughters did in the

wilderness for what a man like this gave-and gave up!-so that we could

have the Book of Mormon today.



	The names and memories of such men and women who were "no less

serviceable" are legion in the Book of Mormon.  Whether it be Mother

Sariah or the simple maid, Abish, servant to the Lamanite queen, each

made contributions that were unacknowledged by the eyes of men, but not

unseen by the eyes of God.



	Mosiah, king over the land of Zarahemla and father of the famous

king Benjamin, has only twelve verses of scripture dealing with his

life.  Yet his service to the people was indispensable.  He led the

people "by many preachings and prophesyings" and " admonished [them]

continually by the word of God" (Omni 1:13).  Limhi, Amulek, and

Pahoran-the latter of whom who had the nobility of soul not to condemn

when he was very unjustly accused-are other examples of people who

served selflessly in the shadow of another's limelight.  The soldier

Teancum, who sacrificed his own life, or Lachoneus, the chief judge who

taught people to repent during the challenge of the Gadiantons, or the

virtually unmentioned missionaries, Onmer and Himni, were all " no less

serviceable" than their companions, yet received very little scriptural

attention.



	We don't know much about Shiblon, the faithful son of Alma who is

sandwiched between Helaman, the future leader, and Corianton, the

transgressor; but it is significant that he is described as a "just

man, and he did walk uprightly before God" (Alma 63:2).  The great

prophet Nephi, mentioned in the Book of Helaman, had a brother named

Lehi, who is seemingly mentioned only in passing but is noted as being

"not a whit behind him [Nephi] as to things pertaining to

righteousness" (see Helaman 11:18-19).



	Of course there are examples of these serviceable individuals in

our dispensation as well.  Oliver Granger is the kind of quiet,

supportive individual in the latter days that the Lord remembered in

section 117 of the Doctrine and Covenants.  Oliver's name may be

unfamiliar to many, so I will take the liberty to acquaint you with

this early stalwart.



	Oliver Granger was eleven year's older than Joseph Smith and, like

the prophet, was from upstate New York.  Because of severe cold and

exposure when he was thirty-three years old, Oliver lost much of his

eyesight.  Notwithstanding his limited vision, he served three

full-time missions.  He also worked on the Kirtland Temple and served

on the Kirtland high council.



	When most of the Saints were driven from Kirtland, Ohio, the

Church left some debts unsatisfied.  Oliver was appointed to represent

Joseph Smith and the First Presidency and return to Kirtland to settle

the Church's business.  Of this task, the Doctrine and Covenants

records: "Therefore, let him contend earnestly for the redemption of

the First Presidency of my Church, saith the Lord" (D&C 117:13).  He

performed this assignment with such satisfaction to the creditors

involved that one of them wrote:



	Oliver Granger's management in the arrangement of the unfinished

business of people that have moved to the Far West, in redeeming their

pledges and thereby sustaining their integrity, has been truly

praiseworthy, and has entitled him to my highest esteem, and every

grateful recollection. [Horace Kingsbury, Painesville, 26 October 1838]



	During Oliver's time in Kirtland, some people, including

disaffected members of the Church, were endeavoring to discredit the

First Presidency and bring their integrity into question by spreading

false accusations.  Oliver Granger, indeed, "redeemed the First

Presidency" through his faithful service.  In response, the Lord said

of Oliver Granger: "His name shall be had in sacred remembrance from

generation to generation, forever and ever" (D&C 117:12).  "I will lift

up my servant Oliver, and beget for him a great name on the earth, and

among my people, because of the integrity of his soul" (HC 3:350).



	When he died in 1841, even though there were but few Saints

remaining in the Kirtland area and even fewer friends of the Saints,

Oliver Granger's funeral was attended by a vast concourse of people

from neighboring towns.



	Though Oliver Granger is not as well known today as other early

leaders of the Church, he was nevertheless a great and important man in

the service he rendered to the kingdom.  Of course, if no one but the

Lord had his name in remembrance, that would be a sufficient blessing

for any of us.



Why Do We Serve?



	I think we should be aware that there can be a spiritual danger to

those who misunderstand the singularity of always being in the

spotlight.  They may come to covet the notoriety and thus forget the

significance of the service being rendered.  As students, you are at a

crucial juncture in your lives when life-shaping judgments are made and

future courses set.  You must not allow yourselves to focus oil the

fleeting light of popularity or substitute that attractive glow for the

substance of true, but often anonymous labor that brings the attention

of God even if it does not get coverage on the six o'clock news.  In

fact, applause and attention can become the spiritual Achilles' heel of

even the most gifted among us.



	If the limelight of popularity should fall on you during some time

in your life, it might be well for you to follow the example of those

in the scriptures who received notoriety and fame.  Nephi is one of the

great examples.  After all he accomplished traveling in the wilderness

with his family, his attitude was still fixed on the things that matter

most.  This is what he said:



	And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my

sins; nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted.



	My God hath been my support; he hath led my through mine

afflictions in the wilderness; and he hath preserved me upon the waters

of the great deep.



	He hath filled me with his love, even unto the consuming of my

flesh.



	He hath confounded mine enemies, unto the causing of them to quake

before me. [2 Nephi 4:19-22]



	The limelight never blinded Nephi to the source of his strength

and his blessings.



	At times of attention and visibility it might also be profitable

for us to answer the question Why do we serve? When we understand why,

we won't be concerned about where we serve.



	President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., taught this vital principle in his

own life.  At general conference in April 1951, President David O. 

McKay was sustained as President of the Church after the passing of

President George Albert Smith.  Up to that tune President Clark had

served as the First Counselor to President Heber J. Grant and President

George Albert Smith. ]'resident McKay had been the Second Counselor to

both men.  During the final session of conference, when the business of

the Church was transacted, Brother Stephen L Richards was called to the

First Presidency and sustained as First Counselor.  President J. Reuben

Clark, Jr., was then sustained as the Second Counselor.  After the

sustaining of the officers of the Church, President McKay explained why

he had chosen his counselors in that order.  He said:



	I felt that one guiding principle in this choice would be to

follow the seniority in the Council [of the Twelve Apostles].  These

two men were sitting in their places in that presiding body in the

Church, and I felt impressed that it would be advisable to continue

that same seniority in the new quorum of the First Presidency. [CR, 9

April 1951, p. 1511



	President Clark was then asked to speak following President McKay. 

His remarks on this occasion were brief, but taught a powerful lesson:



	In the service of the Lord, it is not where you serve but how.  In

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one takes the place to

which one is duly called, which place one neither seeks nor declines. 

I pledge to President McKay and to President Richards the full loyal

devoted service to the tasks that may come to me to the full measure of

my strength and my abilities, and so far as they will enable me to

perform them, however inadequate I may be. [CR, 9 April 1951, p. 154]



	The lesson that President Clark taught is expressed in another way

in this poem by Meade McGuire:



Father, where shall I work today?

And my love flowed warm and free.

Then He pointed out a tiny spot

And said, "Tend that for me."

I answered quickly, "Oh no, not that!

Why, no one would ever see,

No matter how well my work was done,

Not that little place for me."

And the word He spoke, it was not stern;

He answered me tenderly:

"Ah, little one, search that heart of thine.

Art thou working for them or for me?

Nazareth was a little place,

And so was Galilee."



King Benjamin declared:



	Behold, I say unto you that because I said unto you that I had

spent my days in your service, I do not desire to boast, for I have

only been in the service of God.



	And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that

ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye

are only in the service of your God. [Mosiah 2:1617]



	President Ezra Taft Benson said recently in conference:



	Christlike service exalts.... The Lord has promised that those who

lose their lives serving others will find themselves.  The Prophet

Joseph Smith told us that we should "wear out our lives" in bringing to

pass His purposes. (D&C 123:13.) [CR, 30 September 1989, p. 5; or

Ensign, November 1989, pp. 5-6] 



	If you feel that much of what you do this year or in the years to

come does not make you very famous, take heart.  Most of the best

people who ever lived weren't very famous either.  Serve and grow,

faithfully and quietly.  Be on guard regarding the praise of men. 

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount:

 



	Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them:

otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.



	Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet

before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets,

that they may have glory of men.  Verily I say unto you, They have

their reward.



	But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy

right hand doeth:



	That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in

secret himself shall reward thee openly.  [Matthew 6:1-4]



	May our Father in Heaven so reward you this new school year and

always in your lives, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.



                         KEEPING AN OPEN MIND

                       ABOUT THINGS THAT MATTER.

                        Rex E. and Janet G. Lee



     BYU President Rex E. Lee an his wife, Janet, gave this devotional

     address on 11 September 1990 in the Marriott Center.



JANET: Let me tell you of an experience that I had on this campus when

I was a student.  The setting was a beautiful, sunny spring morning in

my dorm room.  As my roommate and I were getting ready for the day, we

were discussing our activities of the previous evening.  I had just had

my first date with a recently returned missionary who was a little hard

for me to figure out.  He was different from anyone I had ever dated.



	"Would you go out with him again if he asked you?" my roommate

inquired.  As I was searching for an answer, the phone rang.  It was

for me, and as I put the receiver to my ear, this is what I heard.



(Rex Lee and Larry Shumway singing) 



I tried so hard, my dear, to show

That you're my every dream,

Yet every time I see your face

It makes me want to scream.



You look much better to me, dear,

The further we're apart.

Your liver may be warm,

But you've got a cold, cold heart.



You'll never know how much it hurts

To see you sit and cry,

But you could cry much better

If you had another eye.



When I see you walk in the room

It makes my eyeballs smart

Why don't you go fall off your broom

And break your cold, cold heart.



	The song ended and no one spoke.  In fact, the connection was dead

at the other end of the line.  I wasn't certain who the "musicians"

were, but I thought I recognized an Arizona twang in at least one of

the voices.  Could that have been my date from the night before? Was

this his way of telling me that I was cold and unfriendly? Where in the

world did he dig up that song, anyway? Was he trying to say, "I never

want to see you again"? What kind of person would call, sing that

ridiculous song, and then hang up? Too strange for me, I decided, and

gave an emphatic "no" to my roommate's earlier question.



	Rex: She was, of course, dead wrong.  Singing that particular song

was the highest compliment we could have paid her, and she should have

been profoundly flattered.  Let me explain why.  My duet partner was

and is Larry Shumway, now the chairman of our humanities department and

then my roommate with whom I had grown up in St. Johns, Arizona.  For

whatever reason, it was very difficult for us to tell our dates that we

liked them.  So, for those we really liked, we sang to them over the

telephone.  We didn't try to give an explanation because that's what

was hard for us to do.  We just sang and then hung up. Nothing more. 

The words of the song we picked were irrelevant.  The significant thing

was that we sang.  That Homer and Jethro version of "Cold, Cold Heart"

was distinctive only in that musically it was the best in our

repertoire.  Therefore, by singing her that song, we were paying her

the highest compliment we could pay.  She should have considered

herself highly honored.



	Janet: Now is that weird or what? I ask every one of you,

especially the women, which conclusion would you have drawn? The one I

drew or the explanation you've just heard from him?



	Rex:  We always wondered why we didn't get more second dates. 

From time to time we switched brands of deodorant soap, but that didn't

seem to help.  And we were always careful to see that our guitars were

tuned before we sang.  Larry was a music major, so he could do that.



	Janet: I just didn't know what to think.  I knew people who were

well acquainted with Rex and in whose judgment I had confidence.  They

told me that his character was flawless, that he had been well liked on

campus before his mission, and that he came from a good family.  I also

knew he was a very successful and respected missionary with a strong

testimony. (Someday I'll tell you how I knew.) But what I was hearing

over the phone did nothing to warm my cold, cold heart!



	However, somehow, almost miraculously, I recovered from that

spring morning serenade.  There was another date and many others

through that quarter, and then a summer apart, when through letters we

became acquainted with each other's hearts and souls.  We both returned

to BYU in the fall and by November were engaged.  My mother recently

found a letter I wrote home after our engagement that in part read:



	"I am very, very much in love and life is wonderful.  I find out

new things about Rex every day that make me love and respect him more

and make me thankful to my Heavenly Father to be here on the earth at

this time to meet the perfect husband for me."



	A little mushy, you might say.  Well, I was very young, but I

could just as easily have said the same thing today.  My love and

respect for him continue to grow.



	What happened to me between the spring and fall of that year? What

opened my mind and my heart to see what was really there unclouded by

the Homer and Jethro version of "Cold, Cold Heart"? What if I hadn't

stepped back and taken a second look?



	Rex: As I look back now, how grateful I am that between that April

morning and the following Thanksgiving this beautiful woman-beautiful

inside and out-was willing to keep an open mind.  At the time I didn't

think of it that way-it was not until years later that she told me of

those astoundingly bizarre conclusions she drew from the supreme

compliment we paid her.  But just think of the impact, the differences

on me, my family, and my life-this one and the next-if Janet had closed

her mental book on me based on what had happened that April morning.



	Now if some of you decide to use this same approach, Larry and I

will be happy to give you the words and music to dozens of real musical

winners, though I must warn you, most of them are not quite as

lyrically sweet and sensitive as the one we just sang.  Chances are,

however, the procedures you will use to select the companion with whom

you will spend fifty years or more on this planet, and an eternity,

will be different.  Given the significance of that decision, it is

correspondingly important that you make it on the basis of mature

judgment and inspiration, after you have gathered the facts and taken

into account the considerations that will be useful for that purpose.



	Janet: But don't decide on the basis of a corny song, rendered by

two tinny voices. (Or more accurately stated, one tinny voice and one

music major.) In my case, my heart warmed as I perceived truth-or the

"real" Rex Lee.  What I had imagined I could see an insensitive cowboy

singing an insulting song-wasn't really there at all.  The mirage was

what I thought I saw, the truth was what he really was.  Truth is ever

present, but it isn't always obvious.  Sometimes we have to look for

truth.  Finding it can be one of life's greatest joys.



	The same principle can be applied to the mirror image of that

situation.  Suppose I had fallen in love with someone who appeared to

have all of the qualities I wanted in a husband, someone who for one

reason or another promised a wonderful, enchanted life? What if I had

become so enamored with this picture that I had closed my eyes to the

fact that there were serious flaws in his character? In this reverse

scenario wouldn't an open mind also be beneficial?



	Now, this is not intended to be a discussion on marriage or on how

to select an eternal companion.  That talk is for another day.  Rather,

today's theme concerns making decisions-of any kind-on the basis of

truth rather than illusions.



	Rex: This time she's right.  Choosing your marriage partner is not

the only example of the importance of keeping an open mind, though it

is certainly an obvious one. just by the nature of the way this life is

put together, you will face an unusually large number of the big-ticket

choices during your college and postgraduate years.  It is during these

years that you will decide whether to go on a mission, pick your major

and your life's work, solidify your values and goals, start your

family, and settle in a community.  Each of those is a major decision,

and each in turn is fed by a hundred smaller ones.



	Some of those decisions will directly involve the purpose for

which you come here.  Particularly for those of you who are freshmen, I

hope that you will not make premature judgements about this university,

including your classes, your roommates, your bishop, and, generally,

the entire distinctive atmosphere that exists here.  My own years as a

student, both as an undergraduate at BYU and also in law school,

underscore the importance of keeping an open mind to such seemingly

micromatters as premature judgments about the worth of a class you are

taking.  I found that so many times what turned out to be very valuable

and stimulating classes were those in which, during the early part of

the year, I concluded that the teacher was boring, the subject matter

borderline nonsense, or both.  With the passage of time, those initial

impressions often turned out to be wrong.



	Janet: I still remember the first upper-division class I took at

BYU.  On the first day of class I was intimidated by the mature

students who surrounded me.  It was a small class of only ten or twelve

students and therefore required participation by each of us.  There was

no hope of going unnoticed.  To add to my terror, I discovered that the

class was taught by the dean of the college.  How could I remain in

that class? Surely I would have nothing to add to discussions with

students who were older, wiser, more experienced, and better informed

than I.



	My first impulse was to drop the course.  I decided to think about

it for a few days, to give myself and the class a try.  Within a short

time that hour became the highlight of my week.  I did a lot of

stretching and reaching as I prepared for and participated in the class

discussions.  I enjoyed being there and looked forward to the challenge

that interaction with mature thinkers provided.



	What if I had given in to my first inclination and run away from

what turned out to be a great experience? I learned so much from that

class, but most valuable was what I learned about myself.  That class

really did change my life because it changed me.  I was capable of more

than I had realized.



	By contrast, I will always regret that I dropped a Shakespeare

class.  I love Shakespeare, the professor was excellent, and the

reading material fascinating.  I even had a few friends in the class,

and the course worked into my schedule at a convenient time.  Then why

did I withdraw? I was taking an extra-heavy load that quarter, and I

wasn't sure I could get my best grade in that class.  I dropped out

after the second day without thinking it through very well.  Was an A

so important to me that I lost sight of what I would learn? Looking

back, the understanding and enjoyment gained from that class would have

been more beneficial to me than maintaining a higher GPA that quarter. 

My immediate assessment of the situation was wrong.  I didn't stand

back long enough to see the bigger picture.  Once again, the point is

the same: Keep an open mind about things that really matter.



	Rex: That principle is equally obvious and equally important as it

applies to impressions that we form of other people.  Will Rogers'

famous statement that he had never met a man he didn't like has become

almost a fixture in our American culture.  Some have questioned

whether, even in the case of its author, that statement could be

literally true.  There has been speculation, for example, that maybe

Will Rogers' circle of acquaintances just wasn't broad enough, and he

would have changed his view if he had known certain people.  My own

favorite comment on this issue appeared on a badge that said, "Will

Rogers never knew me."



	But whatever its literal accuracy, the core of our famous American

comic/ philosopher's best-known statement is unassailable: As we get to

know people better and understand them more thoroughly, our tendency to

criticize or even dislike them diminishes proportionately. So the

obvious conclusion is: Don't make premature negative judgments about

anyone, because as you come to know the whole person better, your

opinion will almost certainly progress to one that is more charitable. 

And that kind of progress is, I think, one of the highest

manifestations of the second great commandment.



	Janet: By committing yourselves to an academic course and

selecting Brigham Young University as your vehicle, you must believe

that this track will take you where you want to go.  All of the

equipment you need is here for you to use.  There will be maps and road

signs along the way in the form of advisors, professors, bishops,

friends, and others.  We hope that you will find much that is true and

good here, that the roadblocks will not be of your own making, and,

when they do occur, that you will be able to find the main road again. 

Sometimes roadblocks occur in our lives when we close our minds to the

big picture because of little, insignificant irritants.  I know of a

student who left school because of problems with her roommates. 

Students have been known to switch majors because of one class they

didn't particularly like.  Do we sometimes exclude larger

considerations because of petty grievances and groundless fears?



	Rex: I've often wondered about some of the implications of this

principle as they apply to the Savior's injunction: "Judge not, that ye

be not judged" (Matthew 7:1).  My own view is that it refers not only

to bottom-line, ultimate kinds of judgments, but also to forming too

soon opinions that may later turn out to be wrong.  And it may apply

not only to judging others, but also to premature judgments about

ourselves.



	There is no conflict, however, between the importance of keeping

an open mind and at the same time recognizing that there are some

truths, some principles, that are unalterable.  There are absolute

truths, for as the Old Testament tells us, God is "a God of truth"

(Deuteronomy 32:4), and these truths will always remain reliable

anchors regardless of all facts and circumstances.  These principles

include revelation, the reality of the Restoration, sexual morality,

Word of Wisdom adherence, and Ten Commandments observance.  Our

testimony of these principles establishes strong roots that should be

continually nourished but need not be periodically reassessed.  For

much of the world, issues such as should I smoke or drink, and, if so,

how much, and should I experiment sexually outside of marriage are

questions whose answers are unclear.  For us, the answers are very

clear because they have come through revelation.  And for that same

reason, we know the importance of such things as prayer and renewing

our covenants each week.



	Janet: These are things we do or don't do because we know as a

matter of absolute truth that they are either totally right or totally

wrong.  They are absolute truths, anchored on revelation itself, and

need not be revisited every time the issues arise.



	Rex: Finally, we want to urge you to keep an open mind about the

coming semester, the coming year, and all your years here.  There is no

other place on earth where you can enjoy the rich, total educational

experience that our university can give you.  You need only take

advantage of it.  Indeed, no other four-year school even tries as we do

to integrate matters of reason with matters of faith in the restored

gospel into a complete learning whole.



	Janet: Most of you either have reached or will reach the point

where you understand this and will take advantage of it.  As a result

your lives will be eternally blessed.  Ours certainly were and still

are.  There are a few people, however, who never really catch the

vision of what BYU offers, and the tragedy of that fact is compounded

by the ever-increasing number of qualified students who would like to

attend BYU but cannot because of our enrollment ceiling.  And so we

implore you, each of you, to seek out the best that is here.  Do not

sit back and wait for BYU's spiritual and intellectual enrichment to

take you by surprise.  Reach out for it.  Like anything worthwhile in

life, this will take effort.  It will require not only an open mind but

also an active mind and spirit and attitude.



	Rex: One of your biggest challenges in this respect will be

maintaining a sense of identity within a very large community.  The

key, I am convinced, is your activity within your ward or stake or, if

you are not LDS, your local church group.  I strongly believe that one

of the best barometers by which you can measure whether you are taking

advantage of what BYU uniquely offers is your activity in your ward or

other congregation.  To be sure, that is not all you need.  But it is

the best way I know to assure against that most common and serious of

BYU student afflictions called loneliness.  It is also the best way to

assure that you won't become lost while you are here.  And it is your

bishop--we hope, in many instances, working with your teachers--who

will be able to help you catch the vision of what BYU's unique

opportunity to learn by study and also by faith can do for your life. 

Working with you, they will be able to help you find a spot in that

great majority of our student body for whom the BYU experience provides

not only the solid education that you would expect at any other fine

university, but also the extra dimension that is available here.



	Janet: We are so glad that you are here.  We wish we could know

each of you on a more personal level.  A few of you, we will.  But for

all of you, we want you to know that your success, welfare, and

happiness are what we are striving for, working hand-in-hand with

faculty members and supporting staff.  We look forward to this coming

school year and achieving that end.  May we do so with open minds, open

hearts, and optimistic spirits.



	Rex: And if you ever get terribly discouraged, just call me on the

phone, and Larry Shumway and I will sing to you.  May the Lord bless

you through this year and throughout your lives.  This is our prayer,

in the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.



                         WAITING UPON THE LORD

                            Henry B. Eyring



     Henry B. Eyring is the First Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric

     of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This fireside

     address was given on 30 September 1990 in the Marriott Center.



	I'm grateful to be with you this evening and for the kind things

that have been said.  I am grateful also to be with you at the

beginning of the year as the stakes and the wards are being organized. 

You are in a time, I hope, of at least a little uncertainty and some

feelings of being in assignments that are beyond you.



Bringing Down the Powers of Heaven



	I would like to talk with you about something that matters to you

now and that, in the months and not many years ahead, will matter to

you more.  You will be in situations where you will want to know how to

bring down the powers of heaven.  I will suggest how you might do that

by waiting upon the Lord.  I pray that we may be blessed to learn

together because I need to understand better how to get help, too.



	You and I struggle to bring down the powers of heaven.  Oh, you

may not think about it much, but sometimes you do.  You go along on

your own and then, suddenly, that's not enough.  Something dramatic may

happen, like having a friend or family member who needs a blessing.  Or

perhaps something dramatic doesn't happen; you realize that you've been

teaching your class or visiting the people who have been assigned to

your care with no visible effect.  That may make you doubt yourself or

the person who called you or even whether you have the power to reach

God.



	Now, my worry is not about your testimony.  You have all had

spiritual experiences, and most of you have recognized them.  Some of

you have had remarkable spiritual experiences.  If I called you up here

to bear your testimony, you could do it by citing spiritual

manifestations in your own experience.



	But what I'm worried about, and at least unconsciously you are,

too, is a fact put bluntly by a President of the Church once.  His name

was Heber J. Grant, and this is what he said.  It was true when he said

it, and it still is.



	Here are his words.  Listen carefully.



	There is but one path of safety to the Latter-day Saints, and that

is the path of duty.  It is not testimony, it is not marvelous

manifestations, it is not knowing that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is

true, . . . it is not actually knowing that the Savior is the Redeemer,

and that Joseph Smith was His prophet, that will save you and me, but

it is the keeping of the commandments of God, the living the life of a

Latter-day Saint. [Heber J. Grant, Improvement Era, November 1936, p.

659]



	Now you and I know that the path of duty and living the life of a

Latter-day Saint require our bringing down the powers of heaven.  Think

about the duties that really matter to a Latter-day Saint: rearing

children in a world of wickedness; caring for the poor when you have

trouble just caring for yourselves; being a witness for the Savior

wherever we may be, in whatever circumstances.  You remember how Alma

described the covenant you and I made at the waters of baptism:



	As ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called

his people, and are willing to bear one another's burdens, that they

may be light;



	Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and

comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses

of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be

in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered

with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life--



	Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what

have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness

before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will

serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit

more abundantly upon you? [Mosiah 18:8-10]



	In more thoughtful times, like tonight, you and I realize that the

promise of serving so that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly

upon us is more than a nice reward; it is a necessity.  For what

matters, our own power is not enough.  You know that getting help won't

be easy or automatic.



	Let me tell you a true story, from my life, that will likely

strike a chord in your memories of your own spiritual life.



	Years ago I was asked to chair a committee of faculty from this

university and others with this question to study: What should be the

future of higher education in the Church?



	Elder Neal A. Maxwell was then the commissioner of education.  I

told him I didn't think I could do it without the help of heaven.  He

asked if I would like a blessing.  I've forgotten how it was arranged

that I would see Elder Alvin R. Dyer.  That was especially pleasant for

me, since I had been a priest once in a ward where he was the bishop,

the president of my quorum.  He listened sympathetically to my story,

put his hands on my head, and gave me a blessing that included words

like this as a promise: "In this assignment, and in many others which

will come to you, your mind will be guided in channels toward the

truth." That blessing gave me confidence, maybe too much confidence. 

The committee began its work.  And after months of what seemed to me

futile effort, I felt some desperation, much as you do when heaven

seems to withhold its help in a task you know matters and is beyond

you.

 

	I somehow managed to arrange another interview.  This one was with

President Harold B. Lee.  He received me in a kindly way.  In my

anxiety, I soon blurted out my question: "President Lee, how do I get

revelation?"



	He smiled.  I am glad he didn't laugh, since it was an odd

question to ask.  But he answered my question with a story.  It was

essentially this.  He said that during World War II he had been part of

a group studying the question "What should the Church be doing for its

members in the military service?" He said they conducted interviews at

bases up and down the country.  They had data gathered.  They had the

data analyzed.  They went back for more interviews.  But still, no plan

emerged.



	Then he gave me the lesson, which I now give to you, in about

these words: "Hal, when we had done all we knew how to do, when we had

our backs to the wall, then God gave us the revelation.  Hal, if you

want to get revelation, do your homework."



	I suppose I should have been embarrassed to take his time to learn

what the Lord told us all long ago.  You remember the rebuke to Oliver

Cowdery and to you and me and to all of our Father's children who are

called to duties that take the powers of heaven.  You remember the

words.  I am always impressed at how kindly they really were.



	Be patient, my son, for it is wisdom in me, and it is not

expedient that yon should translate at this present time.



	Behold, the work which you are called to do is to write for my

servant Joseph.



	And, behold, it is because that you did not continue as you

commenced, when you began to translate, that I have taken away this

privilege from you.



	Do not murmur, my son, for it is wisdom in me that I have dealt

with you after this manner.



	Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would

give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.

	But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your

mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will

cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel

that it is right.



	But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you

shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing

which is wrong; therefore, you cannot write that which is sacred save

it be given you from me.



	Now, if you had known this you could have translated;

nevertheless, it is not expedient that you should translate now. [D&C

9:3-10]



	Now, in fairness to Oliver Cowdery, he had some reason to be

confused.  The Prophet Joseph seemed to have the windows of heaven

opened to him.  The words of revelation came to him, both to translate

the Book of Mormon and to give us the revelations in the Doctrine and

Covenants, at a speed that could easily have misled Oliver.



	I bear you my solemn testimony that the Lord opens the heavens to

his servants today.  He will answer your prayers for help beyond your

human understanding.  But I also bear you my testimony that the words

study it out mean a degree of patience, of labor, of persistence

commensurate with the value of what you seek.



A Promise



	Alma gave his son advice that is good for us. He said:

 



	Preach unto them repentance, and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ;

teach them to humble themselves and to be meek and lowly in heart;

teach them to withstand every temptation of the devil, with their faith

on the Lord Jesus Christ.



	Teach them to never be weary of good works, but to be meek and

lowly in heart; for such shall find rest to their souls. [Alma

37:33-34]



	The good works that really matter require the help of heaven.  And

the help of heaven requires working past the point of fatigue so far

that only the meek and lowly will keep going long enough.



	The Lord doesn't put us through this test just to give us a grade;

he does it because the process will change us.



	President Harold B. Lee described that once in general conference. 

He said:



	To become converted, according to the scriptures, meant having a

change of heart and the moral character of a person turned from the

controlled power of sin into a righteous life.  It meant to "wait

patiently on the Lord" until one's prayers can be answered. [CR, April

1971, p. 92]



	If we are going to do our duty, we are going to need the powers of

heaven.  And if we are going to be given access to the powers of

heaven, we are going to have to learn to wait upon the Lord.



	The word wait in scripture language means to hope for or

anticipate.  Surely the great prophet Isaiah meant that, and I think he

meant more, when he made us a glorious promise.  It's a promise I

carved for my oldest son, Henry, a graduate of this university, when he

had just turned twelve.



	I carved this board.  I got better as the boys came along, by the

way, if you don't admire my carving.  It was a height board.  The idea

was that we would put the board on a wall for my son, and when certain

things happened in his life, we would carve that event.  I carved it

after he was twelve.  He had just received his Eagle badge, so the word

deacon is not carved there.  It begins with teacher.  This plaque goes

through teacher, priest, elder, mission, and marriage.   When it

started, it was empty.  So I knew it needed something nice at the top;

it needed a crest and a motto.  Since he had just won his Eagle Scout

badge, I carved an eagle at the top with this legend from Isaiah as his

motto.  It reads: "On Eagles' Wings."



	Oh, but I wish there had been more room on the board so that I

could have carved there the whole lesson.  I would like to give it to

you tonight.  How would he be lifted as on eagles' wings? Here's the

lesson from the great prophet, whose words the Lord commended to us.



	But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they

shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary;

and they shall walk, and not faint. [Isaiah 40:31] 



	If I were to try to help you, or my son, have that glorious

blessing--that you not be weary in doing your duty, I would tell you

the little I know about waiting upon the Lord.



	The scriptures, what I see around me, and my own experience tell

me that this scripture has a key in it.  Listen carefully to this

scripture.  It is one Alma teaches us:



	And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and

gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering;

being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the

commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand

in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God

for whatsoever things ye do receive.



	And see that ye have faith, hope, and charity, and then ye will

always abound in good works.



	And may the Lord bless you, and keep your garments spotless. [Alma

7:23-25]



	Being submissive, gentle, easy to be entreated, and patient are

all attributes.  But the actions Alma commends to us are to ask for

what we need and to return thanks.  Please don't think of that as a

routine command to say your prayers.  Oh, it is much more than that. 

If you pray, if you talk to God, and if you plead for the help you

need, and if you thank him not only for help but for the patience and

gentleness that come from not receiving all you desire right away or

perhaps ever, then I promise you that you will draw closer to him.  And

then you will become diligent and longsuffering.



Live on the Lord's Side of the Line



	Let me tell you another way you can make a simple choice that will

surely bring down on you the powers of heaven.  Just as you sometimes

feel the great need to have heaven's help in your service, you must

often sense a need for help to resist evil. just as prayer is a simple

choice, there is a simple choice you can make to bring the powers of

heaven to you that you might live clean in a wicked world.



	President George Albert Smith made you a promise.  It seemed so

powerful that I wondered if the quotation when I found it was taken out

of context.  So I looked it up.  I checked the original source and

found that context is no problem since this statement was printed alone

in a box by itself.  It has no context.  He said:



	There are two influences ever present in the world.  One is

constructive and elevating and comes from our Heavenly Father; the

other is destructive and debasing and comes from Lucifer.  We have our

agency and make our own choice in life subject to these unseen powers. 

There is a division line well defined that separates the Lord's

territory from Lucifer's.  If we live on the Lord's side of the line

Lucifer cannot come there to influence us, but if we cross the line

into his territory we are in his power.  By keeping the commandments of

the Lord we are safe on His side of the line, but if we disobey His

teachings we voluntarily cross into the zone of temptation and invite

the destruction that is ever present there.  Knowing this, how anxious

we should always be to live on the Lord's side of the line. [George

Albert Smith, Improvement Era, May 1935, p. 278]



	You can make a simple choice: you can decide to move toward the

Savior, toward his side.  You can do it tonight when you decide what to

do with the time that's left before you sleep.  Each of you will have

different alternatives, but the choice will be clear.  President Smith

said the line was clear.  And you remember Mormon told his son, Moroni,

exactly what marked the line and why it was so clear.  Think about this

when you decide what video you might watch, what magazine you might

pick up, or whatever you might do.  Mormon said to his son:



	For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he

may know, good from evil; therefore, I show unto you the way to judge;

for everything which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in

Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may

know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.



	But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in

Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a

perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the

devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither

do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him. [Moroni

7:16-17]



	Now I plead with you to take that seriously.  The world will

become more wicked.  You will need the help of heaven to keep the

commandments.  You will need it more and more as the days go on.  Satan

will expand the space that is not safe.  He will try every way he can

to persuade you that there is no danger in trying to come as close as

you can to that dividing line.  At the same time he is trying to

persuade people that there really is no line at all.  Because he knows

you know it is there, he will say to you, "Come closer to the line."



	But you can bring the protective powers of heaven down on you by

simply deciding to go toward the Savior, to wait on him.  Satan will

tell you, as he has done regularly for ages, that you will not be happy

in safety, that you must come near his ground to live the happy life. 

Well, that is a clear choice, too.  Here it is, put about as plainly as

you will get it by Nephi:



	Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are

given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose

liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to

choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the

devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto

himself. [2 Nephi 2:27]



	I hope you will remember that when you see some beautifully

packaged, cleverly advertised invitation to go to Satan's territory It

will be funny or pleasant or charming or glamorous; but remember, he

wants you as miserable as he is himself.  He lies to you to tell you

that you must go toward him to find happiness.



Listen for the Voice of the Lord



	As long as we are being plain about choices, there is another way

you can decide to wait upon the Lord.  Again, it is a choice to move to

safety by doing your duty.  It takes a decision both about how to use

your time and where to put your ego.  And you can use it in the next

week.  Here it is again from that plain speaker, President Harold B.

Lee:



	Now the only safety we have as members of this church is to do

exactly what the Lord said to the Church in that day when the Church

was organized.  We must learn to give heed to the words and

commandments that the Lord shall give through his prophet, "as he

receiveth them, walking in all holiness before me; ... as if from mine

own mouth, in all patience and faith" (D&C 21:4-5).  There will be some

things that take patience and faith.  You may not like what comes from

the authority of the Church.  It may contradict your political

views.... It may interfere with some of your social life.  But if you

listen to these things, as if from the mouth of the Lord himself, with

patience and faith, the promise is that "the gates of hell shall not

prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of

darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good,

and his names's glory" (D&C 21:6). [CR, October 1970, p. 152]



	I'll add a promise to you of my own.  If you will wait upon the

Lord while you listen to this next general conference, if you will

listen for his voice, you will recognize it in the words spoken by his

servants.  Forget about them as human personalities, and when the

conference is over, I promise you that you will have a quiet assurance

that those human beings are called of God and that God honors their

calls.



	I will make you that same promise the next time your bishop speaks

to you.  I was in my ward this afternoon, and our bishop spoke.  As my

wife and I left, we said, "You could feel, couldn't you, when the Holy

Ghost came." He bore testimony, and I knew that bishop, who is my

neighbor, was as called of God as I have ever known that any human

being was called of God.



	Now you try it with your bishop.  He might sometime soon decide to

talk to you.  Listen.  Wait upon the Lord as he speaks.  Don't worry

about him as a human being.  You just listen and see if you can hear

the voice of the Lord.  I will promise you not only that you will hear

what you should hear, but that you will see his call is a call from

God, and you will find it far easier to be the faithful servant in your

ward.



	You might even try it with your home teachers or your visiting

teachers.  While they are there, wait upon the Lord, listen and see if

you can know what it is God would have you do.  It may not even be in

their words.  It may be things that will come to you while they speak,

but you will know.  And you will know that it is coming to you because

you are waiting upon the Lord by honoring his servants.  And when you

see that God can honor the callings of such ordinary people, you will

find your faith increased that he may magnify what you are doing in

your own service.  You won't always see the miracles that come from

your work, which is probably a blessing.  If you did, you would get

proud.  But you can often underestimate what God is doing as he honors

your calling.



You Came for the Savior



	You've surely noticed how much we've talked about meekness, about

service, about waiting, and about submission.  That ought to raise a

question something like this: Aren't we trying to get a first-class

education at this university that produces independence, critical

thinking, and, even as we do in the scientific method, the proper use

of skepticism? Those attitudes have been used by many people, and they

have produced the secular miracles of our age.  How in the world, you

might ask, do you expect us to excel in using our intellects and yet

wait so patiently upon the Lord?



	Let me encourage you by telling you a Story.  It was told to me by

my father.  He told it with the intent to chuckle at himself.  It was a

story about his trying to do his duty, just the way you try to do your

duty.



	Now you have to know a little bit about my father.  His name was

Henry Eyring, like mine.  He had done some of the things students of

this university are preparing to be able to do.  His work in chemistry

was substantial enough to bring the honors some of you will someday

have, but he was still a member of a ward of the Church with his duty

to do.  To appreciate this story, you have to realize that it occurred

when he was nearly eighty and had bone cancer.  He had bone cancer so

badly in his hips that he could hardly move.  The pain was great.



	Dad was the senior high councilor in his stake with the

responsibility for the welfare farm.  An assignment was given to weed a

field of onions, so Dad assigned himself to go work on the farm.



	Dad never told me how hard it was, but I have met several people

who were with him that day.  I talked to one of them on the phone the

other night to check the story.  The one I talked to said that he was

weeding in the row next to Dad through much of the day.  He told me the

same thing that others who were there that day have told me. He said

that the pain was so great that Dad was pulling himself along on his

stomach with his elbows.  He couldn't kneel.  The pain was too great

for him to kneel.  Everyone who has talked to me has remarked how Dad

smiled, and laughed, and talked happily with them as they worked in

that field of onions.



	Now, this is the joke Dad told me on himself, afterward.  He said

he was there at the end of the day.  After all the work was finished

and the onions were all weeded, someone asked him, "Henry, good

heavens! You didn't pull those weeds, did you? Those weeds were sprayed

two days ago, and they were going to die anyway."



	Dad just roared.  He thought that was the funniest thing.  He

thought it was a great joke on himself.  He had worked through the day

in the wrong weeds.  They had been sprayed and would have died anyway.



	When Dad told me this story, I knew how tough it was.  So I said

to him, "Dad, how could you make a joke out of that? How could you take

it so pleasantly?"



	He said something to me that I will never forget, and I hope you

won't. he said, "Hal, I wasn't there for the weeds."



	Now, you'll be in an onion patch much of your life.  So will I. It

will be hard to see the powers of heaven magnifying us or our efforts. 

It may even be hard to see our work being of any value at all.  And

sometimes our work won't go well.



	But you didn't come for the weeds.  You came for the Savior.  And

if you pray, and if you choose to be clean, and if you choose to follow

God's servants, you will be able to work and wait long enough to bring

down the powers of heaven.



	Don't worry too much about the apparent conflict between your

scholarly ambitions and doing your duty to God as a humble Latter-day

Saint.  Both take diligence and enough humility to endure not having

things go your way.  But the rewards are far different, far greater.



	I was with Dad in the White House in Washington, D.C., the morning

he got the National Medal of Science from the president of the United

States.  I missed the days when he got all the other medals and prizes. 

But, oh, how I'd like to be with him on the morning he gets the prize

he won for his days in the onion patches.  He was there to wait on the

Lord.  And you and I can do that, too.  We could wait on the Lord

tonight.



	I pray that we will, tonight, tomorrow, and on and on.  Then maybe

we can hear this said of us:



	And now, my son, I trust that I shall have great joy in you,

because of your steadiness and your faithfulness unto God; for as you

have commenced in your youth to look to the Lord your God, even so I

hope that you will continue in keeping his commandments; for blessed is

he that endureth to the end. [Alma 38:2]



	My brothers and sisters, tonight I have talked about the little I

know about waiting upon the Lord.  I have given some examples of

prayer, of choosing to be as far on the Lord's side as you can get, of

listening to the Brethren and trying to hear in their voices the voice

of the Lord.  If you will think about it, you will realize that for me

to tell you too many details of what you ought to do is itself not

wise, because you should wait upon the Lord to find out for yourself.



	Now I would like to tell you what I plan to do.  You will each

make your own application plan.  I have some little cards.  I am going

to carry with me 2 Nephi 32:9.  And the next time I get asked by a

bishop or my quorum leader to do something, here is what I am going to

try to remember.  Could you remember this?



	But behold, I say unto yon that ye must pray always, and not

faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the

first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that

he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may

be for the welfare of thy soul. [2 Nephi 32:9]



	Now here is my plan.  Next time I decide to do something, I think

I will ask in prayer, "Heavenly Father, is this what the Lord would

have me do?" And I think I will wait upon the Lord until I know.  Then

I might say, "Please, while I am working at it, can I remember that I

am doing it for the Lord?" I promise you that if you will be patient

and diligent, you will have. a blessing come to you that you will know

that you are doing what the Lord would have you do.  And you can be

blessed to remember that while you are in that onion patch, you are not

there for the weeds.  That will be important sometimes when the weeds

don't come out easily.  You can feel the approval of God.



	But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they

shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary;

and they shall walk, and not faint. [Isaiah 40:31]



	Dad never got better.  He just got worse.  So you might say,

"Well, he waited upon the Lord, but he couldn't run and he couldn't

walk." But that was true only in this life.  There will be a day for

you and me when, whatever difficulties and limitations we have here, we

will have that promise fulfilled for us.  We will be lifted up as on

eagles' wings, and it will be those who have waited upon the Lord.



	I pray you might know that this is the Church of Jesus Christ.  He

is the head of it.  He is our master.  We serve him.  We wait upon him. 

I bear you my testimony that there is a prophet called of God.  Those

who lead you in the kingdom are called of God.



	You can by faithful service wait upon the Lord.  I pray that you

will do your duty.  I promise you that is the path of safety.  I pray

that God will give you the power that you might do it always, in the

name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.



                              OUT OF YOUR

                            EXPERIENCE HERE

                          Gordon B. Hinckley



Gordon B. Hinckley is First Counselor in the First Presidency of The

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This devotional address

was delivered on 16 October 1990 in the Marriott Center.



	It is a wonderful opportunity to be with you this beautiful autumn

morning.  It is a tremendous challenge to say something that will be

helpful to you as you begin, for some of you, a new school year at this

institution.  For others, as freshman, welcome.



	First, I bring you the love and blessing of President Ezra Taft

Benson, who serves as chairman of the board of trustees.



	As all of you know, he has been seriously ill in the hospital for

some time.  He is much better than he has been, and it is anticipated

that he may come home tomorrow.  That will be good news for all of us. 

He loves this school, which he attended at one time.  He has so

indicated on many occasions.  We pray that the Lord will continue to

bless him, that he will be comforted and strengthened and experience a

renewal of vitality.



A Great Privilege and Blessing



	For more than twenty-five years I have served as a member of the

board of trustees of this university.  I have served as vice chairman

of the board for almost a decade.  I have served as chairman of the

executive committee of the board for longer than I can remember.



	I say this only to indicate that I feel a great appreciation for

this university.  What a wonderful place it is.  This beautiful campus

is the envy of administrators across the nation and across the world. 

I remind each of you that it is a precious experience to walk through

the beauty of these grounds and to live a very important part of your

life in the excellent facilities that have been provided for you.



	It is a wonderful thing to be on a campus where there are winners. 

I congratulate the football team and every other achiever on this

campus.



	You study under a great faculty, a unique and different faculty. 

They are people who are academically qualified.  And beyond this they

have a quality that I think is unmatched in any other university in the

world, a quality of the Spirit.



	You have here the opportunity for a wonderful social life.  Each

of you is one of a great congregation of friends.  What an exhilarating

thing to be involved every day with bright and personable and good

associates.



	BYU is wonderful because of its sponsoring institution.  It is

becoming increasingly unique among large universities in the strength

and loyalty and generosity of its sponsor.  It enjoys a security

because of this, relying not upon tax monies that are mandated by

politicians, but on tithing funds that come from the consecrations of

good people and are administered by men and women who feel a direct

responsibility to the Lord.



	I compliment you, each of you, on the great privilege and blessing

you have in being here.  I am grateful for the opportunity to be

associated, in some measure at least, with this remarkable institution.



	But this responsibility is not without worries and concerns.  I

remember many years ago, when Ernest L. Wilkinson was president, we had

an important discussion in our board meeting.  For some years prior to

that, the university had vigorously recruited students, with General

Authorities at stake conferences being a part of that effort.  Then,

suddenly, there were more applicants than could be accommodated, and

there was much discussion concerning enrollment ceilings.  There was

talk about who should be eligible to come and what should be the

qualifying factors.  That meeting was conducted by President Harold B.

Lee, who was then serving as a counselor in the First Presidency.  As

the discussion went on, I remember saying, "The basic question we face

now and will continue to face is simply this, 'Who will the Church

educate, and who will it turn away?"'



	The question was faced then, and it has troubled us ever since. 

We discussed it during the administration of President Wilkinson.  We

repeated that discussion during the administration of President Oaks. 

It was a recurring subject during the administration of President

Holland.  Now, in past months, during the administration of President

Lee, we have spent hours talking about this same question.



	The problem will continue, and I fear a clear-cut answer will

elude us in the future as it has in the past.  In fact, the problem

grows more serious through the years simply because the Church is

growing.  There is an ever-increasing number of young people who desire

to come to this great and unique university.  In terms of character and

in terms of faithfulness in the Church, they are qualified.  Their

parents and ecclesiastical leaders are confident that they have the

ability to handle the work.  They may not have done exceptionally well

in high school, but this does not necessarily mean that they do not

have the potential to make it at the university level.



	Many and pathetic are the letters we receive.  A stake president

recently ",rote concerning a young man who had been denied admission. 

He had done reasonably well in high school, but apparently not well

enough.  His parents have been faithful and active in the Church.  They

have been full tithe payers throughout their lives.  They have sent

their children on missions.  They have done everything the Church has

asked them to do.  If the major portion of the costs of operating BYU

come from the tithing funds of the Church, then why are not the

children of longtime faithful tithe payers eligible to attend as long

as they meet reasonable qualifications?



	In his letter, the stake president continued, "Is it our objective

to turn out of this school an elitist group, snobbish about their

intellectual superiority?"



	These are difficult questions to answer.  There is an injustice. 

This is the single most expensive entity funded by the tithes of the

Church.  Should not all who are honest and generous in their tithing be

eligible for its benefits?



	As the Church continues to grow, there will be an increasingly

smaller percentage of its young people who will have the opportunity of

attending this university.



	Somehow, each of you who is here today has that remarkable

opportunity.  I need not remind you that you are a highly favored

group.  I do not dispute your assertion that you earned the right to be

here through very diligent study and hard work.  In your high school

years you met certain stringent requirements that many of your

associates did not work to achieve.  You kept yourselves morally clean

and met other criteria.  But the fact remains that there are thousands

of others across this world who would enjoy this privilege but are

denied primarily because a way had to be found to deny them.



	I submit, therefore, that there has been placed in each of you, as

a privileged beneficiary, a great and sacred trust.  You and we have

entered into a covenant.  Those of us who are responsible for the

expenditure of the tithing funds of the Church have said to you in

effect, "We are trustees of the funds of the Lord.  We are willing to

make a substantial portion of these funds available to you for your

blessing provided you in return pledge certain efforts in your studies

and meet certain requirements in your deportment." We will feel happy

if you meet that trust.  We will feel disappointed and embarrassed if

you do otherwise.



	I think there is not a student here, I hope there is not a student

here, who does not know, in a general way at least, what is expected of

him or her.



What Will You Take with You?



	Presumably you have come here to follow a course that leads to

graduation so that you may be the better qualified to take your place

in the society of which you will become a part.  For some of you

graduation is relatively near, just a few months away.  For most of you

it seems far away and an almost unattainable goal.  I assure you,

notwithstanding your fears, that it will come faster than you may

think.



	And so, as I speak to you in October, I would like to project your

thinking forward to a future April or August commencement day, your own

graduation day.  I should like to ask, at this early day, What will you

take with you when you finally leave BYU?



	When that hoped-for commencement day comes, when you walk into

this hall with a rented mortarboard on your head and a rented robe on

your back to receive a diploma, and then, as you leave through these

doors with that diploma in hand, I hope you will go forth with, in

addition to your academic maturity, three acquired qualities, each of

which I consider to be rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ.



	First is intellectual discipline.  I hope that while you are here

you will develop a degree of mental acuity that finds its expression in

a mind that is alert, that is orderly in its processes, that is hungry

for more of the kind of thing it has been fed while here.  Already you

have shown a marked disposition in this direction.  Otherwise, you

would not be here.  As you moved through high school you saw many of

your associates drop away, unwilling to pay the price of effort needed

to finish the course.  I congratulate you.



	We are constantly reminded that there is cause for alarm in our

nation.  It is shocking to read, for instance, that illiteracy is on

the rise.  Firms that employ large numbers of workers are alarmed over

the qualifications of some of those they hire.  The Conference Board

recently surveyed 163 large companies in a variety of industries.  And

now I quote,



	early 20% of surveyed firms say they are having problems finding

workers who read well enough for entry-level jobs.  Almost 50% say that

between 15% and 35% of their current employees are not capable of

handling more complex tasks, and 10% say that up to half of their

current workers do not have the skills needed for promotion.... Nearly

a quarter of students currently entering high school will not graduate,

and those who do will be less literate than their counterparts decade

ago.



That appraisal comes from a recent issue of  the Wall Street journal (9

October 1990, p.  A2). Similar findings are reported in other business

journals.  One of the reasons for this condition lies in the way in

which so many spend much of their time.



	I deplore the terrible waste of the intellectual resources of so

many people of this nation who devote countless hours watching mindless

drivel.  What a wonderful thing it is, on the other hand, to be found

submersed, as you are, in a world of books wherein you can walk with

the great minds of all time.  Again, in the Wall Street Journal was a

column written by the former editor of the Chicago Tribune.  He wrote

of certain aspects of television and then asked:



	What is the mystery ... about a society that has the manners of a

rock band, the morals of a soap opera, the decision-making ability of

the Simpsons and wants to pay for government with Visa and American

Express? Why should we be surprised that our underlying culture is

constructed from the ratings-based, give-them-what-they-want,

remote-controlled, quick-zap world of commercial television? [Jim

Squires, "Television's Civil War," Wall Street Journal 8 October 1990,

p. A10]



	This old world needs straightening up.  It needs leadership.  If

you doubt that, witness the fiasco we are seeing in Congress and the

administration, where politics so obviously come ahead of principle.



	George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel once made a statement to the effect

that those who do not read history will have to repeat it. The decay we

witness seeping into our society becomes a repetition of the same decay

that took down earlier civilizations.



	My brethren and sisters, this is the greatest season of your lives

to develop a familiarity with good books and great minds, the kind of

familiarity that will lead to mental acuity and intellectual strength.

 



	I had a delightful experience only last Saturday evening.  I

attended a dinner celebrating eighty-five years of the presence in Utah

of immigrants from Greece.  Seated at the small table next to me was a

professor of cardiology at the University of Utah Medical School.  He

was born in Athens and educated at the University of Athens.  Next to

him was his wife, a professor in pediatric cardiology, also born and

educated in Greece.  Next to her was a professor of engineering born in

Salonika.  It was a stimulating experience to talk with these

individuals whose minds had been stretched while they were students and

who have never lost an opportunity for learning.



	To you I say, don't be a couch potato.  Be a man or a woman with a

mind and a will and a bit of discipline, with a zest for learning that

will be cultivated in this institution while you are here and that will

be expanded through all the years to come.



	I have been fascinated with reclamation projects, the great dams

and canals built in many parts of America and across the world to take

water from where there is plenty of it and put it where there is not

enough.  Men have learned to transfer resources, thereby preventing

waste and adding to the comfort and blessing of uncounted numbers who

otherwise might be denied.



	So it must be with you who hake come to learn in this great

institution.  You must pick up knowledge now available to you and at

the same time cultivate a continuing thirst for knowledge to be added

to throughout your lives and to be shared with others for their

blessing and benefit.  Such is the opportunity and the responsibility

you have as a student at Brigham Young University.  What will you take

with you when you leave here? I hope it will be an intellectual hunger,

a mental sharpness, a mental discipline, a substantial body of

knowledge to which you will wish to add all the days of your lives.



	Second, I hope you will develop a spirit of fellowship, social

ease, the capacity to mix and mingle with people wherever you meet

them, of low caste or high caste, recognizing their strengths an powers

and capacities and goodness.



	That facility can be developed on this campus.  It can come of the

pro and con discussions you have in your classes and that you have as

you sit together in small groups talking with one another, even arguing

over matters.  This is one of the great blessings of university life,

to learn to speak together and think together in a kind of challenging

environment.



	A vibrant personality that comes of the capacity to listen and

learn, that comes of the ability to contribute without boring, that

comes of a talent for mingling and mixing with people in a constructive

way is something very precious, indeed, that can come as a part of your

life on this campus.  The cultivation of such will keep you from the

moral traps that catch so many.



	I wish to emphasize that I hope you are so busy studying good

books that lead to productive thinking and so pleased with the

opportunity that you have to mix with others of your kind and to

perhaps verbally scrap and argue together over public issues and

matters of broad interest that you have no time to waste on the filth

and rot we call pornography, the production and peddling of which has

become a multimillion-dollar industry where a few get rich and

multitudes become enslaved and debauched.

 



	I submit that you have no time for such.  I submit that you will

never in all your life have time for such.  I submit that it is neither

necessary nor desirable.  I submit that you must live above it.  You

can switch stations on the television set.  You need not rent or buy

the videotapes.  You can stay away from the shows that peddle this

rubbish.  You can avoid all of this kind of filth, and you will be so

much the stronger for it.  If you do it now, you can establish habits

of avoidance that will carry you throughout your lives.  You can

establish habits of doing the better thing for as long as you live.



	If you have been touched by this, put it behind you.  Develop the

social ease that gives you the capacity to mingle with others and talk

with others in a stimulating and uplifting manner.  Social grace is so

important a quality-it can be developed on campus and will bless you

throughout your life.



	Third, when you walk out of this hall, with your diploma in hand, 

hope you will take with you an unassailable spiritual strength.  I

repeat that this is a unique and remarkable university.  It is an

institution where you may learn the secular things of the world as well

as you might learn them anywhere else on earth.  And then there is a

spiritual value that undergirds all that is done here.  How marvelous a

thing in the human character is a certain and solid assurance that God

our Eternal Father lives.  How richly blessed is that young man or

woman who knows that he or she can approach the Almighty in quiet and

humble prayer.  How enriched is the individual who, as he or she goes

out into the world, knows that all men and women are sons and daughters

of God, each endowed with a divine birthright.  How beneficial to come

to the realization that, since we are all children of God, we all are

brothers and sisters in a very real sense.



	There is too much intolerance in the world.  There is too much of

it in our own society.



	I listened to a beautiful prayer the other evening, offered by a

Greek-American in the manner in which he had been taught to pray.  It

was an expression of gratitude to the Almighty and a plea for his

favor.  It was concluded in the name of the Father and the Son and the

Holy Ghost.  His phrasing was not as my phrasing might have been, but I

recognized his sincerity and told him of my appreciation.



	I sat one evening at the table of a Jewish friend.  The prayer he

uttered upon his guests and upon the table at which we sat was

beautiful and moving.  I was grateful for what I heard.



	We can be appreciative in a very sincere way.  We must not only be

tolerant, but we must cultivate a spirit of affirmative gratitude for

those who do not see things quite as we see them.  We do not in any way

have to compromise our theology, our convictions, our knowledge of

eternal truth as it has been revealed by the God of Heaven.  We can

offer our own witness of the truth, quietly, sincerely, honestly, but

never in a manner that will give offense to others.



	The strength of our position as we understand it will become

clearer and more precious as we allow others the same privilege of

conscience that we so highly prize.  We must learn to accord

appreciation and respect for others who are as sincere in their beliefs

and practices as are we.



	This great institution of which each of you is now a part is

maintained by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the

premise that out of your experience here will come a love for God, our

Eternal Father, and his Only Begotten Son, the Savior and the Redeemer

of the World.



	His is the matchless life we have been taught to emulate.  He gave

that life for each of us.  He is our Redeemer and our Lord.  These two,

the Father and the Son, revealed themselves in these latter days to the

boy who became prophet, seer, and revelator and president of this

Church.  The ancient priesthood is upon the earth with all of its

powers and glories.  It is all here, not to be boasted of, but to be

quietly acknowledged with gratitude, to be shared where there is a

desire to know, never to be forced but to be spoken of with conviction

and love and gratitude.



	None of these things that I have spoken of will be mentioned on

the diplomas you carry from this institution on graduation day.  But

they are all implicit in the purposes and design of this university. 

If you carry them with you, your lives will be blessed.  Your

experiences will be challenging, but they will be sweet and enriching,

and you will become the means of bringing good to all whose lives you

touch.  To this end I humbly pray, as I invoke the blessing of the Lord

upon you and express my love and appreciation and good wishes in the

great experiences that lie ahead of you, in the name of Jesus Christ. 

Amen.



                                  ONE

                              OUT OF MANY

                           Francis M.Gibbons



     Francis M. Gibbons is a member of The Second Quorum of the Seventy

     of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This fireside

     address was given on 4 November 1990 in the Marriott Center.



	We are all alike, and yet so very different.  This truth reflects

one of the most unusual aspects of the Creation, that there should be

such wide diversity in the midst of apparent uniformity.  For example,

as I look out over this vast audience, it is impossible for me to

differentiate among the sea of faces.  It reminds me somewhat of the

jest of one of our Japanese friends who said, "The trouble with you

Occidentals is that you all look alike."



	But if I were to dismount the stand and walk toward the back of

the building, as I drew near, the differences would be readily apparent

in the quantity, the shade, and the texture of the hair; differences in

the depth and color of the eye; in the shape of the face and the

figure.  But these and many other physical differences readily apparent

to the naked eye do not begin to tell the story of the special

distinction each of us has.



	We learn, for example, that there are no two sets of fingerprints

exactly alike.  Thus, of the billions of people who have lived, who now

live, or who may yet live, each has a special identifying mark at the

tips of his fingers; wherever one goes without gloves, he leaves a

trail that can be readily followed by another with the requisite skill

and patience.  The burglar, for instance, who enters my home under the

cloak of night, believing his presence there will never be detected, is

surprised to learn we have placed him inside the house because of a

thumbprint he carelessly left on a piece of furniture.



	And, we are told, each of us who writes has a different style from

all others.  Our voices are different, too.  The differences in timbre,

in tone, in volume, in inflection, in cadence, all make it possible for

us to identify someone on the telephone without ever having heard the

name mentioned.  But again, these and other physical differences not

visible to the eye still do not tell the full story, for there is

within each of us a spirit that preexisted earth life, that stands

apart from all others.



	Abraham was shown the spirits that existed before the world was,

and he was identified as being one of them.  There were, therefore,

special qualities iii his character, appearance, and demeanor that made

him stand out from all others.  As it was with Abraham in the premortal

existence, so it was with each of us.  Each was a standout.  Each was

different.  And these differences in spiritual attributes exist today

and are reflected in our attitudes and conduct.  So, you sisters, the

next time your sweetheart says there is no one like you in the whole

world, believe him, because it is true.



An Interesting Cycle



	In mortality, most of us pass through an interesting cycle,

oscillating from individuality to uniformity and back to individuality

again.  The newborn baby is highly individualistic.  Ordinarily, he is

set up in a special room, the nursery, from which he controls and

directs the activities of the household.  Eating and sleeping schedules

are arranged around the whims or the needs of the baby.  You must curry

his favor.  He will not seek yours.  Occasionally he may bestow upon

you a passing glance or a fleeting smile, the last as often as not

arising from his gastritis as from any special interest in you.  So,

the king reigns supreme.



	But the time comes when His Majesty is toppled from his throne. 

With an oldest child, this usually happens when number two makes an

appearance.  It does not take long to discover that this unwanted

stranger who has begun to monopolize the time of his court is not

merely a visitor, but a permanent resident.  Later, his status and

influence are further diluted when he begins to attend church and

school.  Then follows a period when the child's individuality is

submerged and he yearns to look, to act, and to talk just like his

peers.



	How well I remember in the first grade in St. Johns, Arizona, that

just as regularly as my mother sent me to school with combed hair, just

as regularly would I mess it up when I was out of her sight.  It was

not an act of rebellion, nor of disrespect.  It was an act of survival. 

For you see, at that time and that place, the accepted grooming

standard for boys was disheveled hair; you cannot begin to imagine the

burden that would have been laid upon me had I gone to school with

combed hair and the name Francis Marion.



	Later, in high school in Phoenix, combed hair was in, and so were

saddle oxfords and argyle socks and corduroys.  It was only on rare

occasions that we ventured out of this uniform.  I have observed the

same phenomenon in my own children and their friends.  Indeed, we

wondered a few years ago whether the clothiers had discontinued

manufacturing any kind of jacket except the blue Windbreaker.  And

then, for a while, quilted jackets were very much in vogue.



	But there comes a time when the maturing adult wishes to set his

own individual tastes and preferences.  Parents may know their daughter

has reached or is fast approaching this stage when she announces one

day that she will never again wear her new dress, for she has seen

someone else wearing one exactly like it.  She will insist that the

dress be returned, or passed on as a hand-me-down, or given to the D.I.

And if, as a last resort, it is to be kept, then it surely must be

altered or dyed.



	One of the finest things that came out of the decade of the

sixties was the trend toward and the emphasis upon individuality.  This

was reflected in the catchphrase "Do your own thing" and in Paul Anka's

lyrics, "I did it my way." But that generation did not originate this

idea.  It is as old as the human race, even much older.  At other

times, it was expressed in other, perhaps more eloquent language.



	It was precisely this idea that worked such a change in the

attitudes and accomplishments of President David O. McKay.  You will

remember that at one point during his mission in the British Isles as a

young man, he reached a point of discouragement when he felt inept and

unproductive.  In the midst of this despondency, he saw, one day,

inscribed on a stone over the entryway of a building, the phrase, "What

e'er thou art, act well thy part." This short statement brought home to

him a great truth he had not previously understood: It matters little

where we serve or in what capacity.  What does matter is how we serve.



Individuality and Unity



	I am always intrigued by the examples of men and women who, in

their conduct, manifest that they have made peace with themselves, have

accepted themselves for what they are, have ceased trying to be someone

they are not, and whose object and purpose in life is to be the best of

what they are or what they may become.  Especially intriguing to me is

the character reflected in the encounter (perhaps legendary) between

the philosopher Diogenes and young Alexander the Great.  According to

the report that has come down to us, Alexander saw Diogenes one day at

the roadside talking to a group of disciples.  Impressed by his

demeanor and the careful attention of his audience, Alexander stopped

to listen and, listening, became a disciple himself.  At length he

mustered enough courage to ask the philosopher, "Is there any way I can

serve you?" The answer that has come down through the centuries was

quite unexpected.  Said Diogenes, "Yes.  You can stand out of my

sunshine." While we may wish that the answer had been a little more

kindly and a little less arrogant, we cannot help but admire the sense

of independence and self-confidence it imparted.



	Another example closer to our time and place of another

philosopher, from an entirely different mold, is that of Eric Hoffer. 

By choice this man earned a livelihood all his adult life as a day

laborer, usually as a longshoreman.  He said this mode of employment

gave him more time to think and reflect and did not divert his

attention unduly from the thing that meant the most to him.  In

submitting his first manuscript to a publisher, he mailed his only

copy, written in his own handwriting.  When a friend expressed shock at

this, he explained that the original was recorded upon his mind,

verbatim; he had reflected so long on the subject he knew it by heart. 

His character and methods are clearly revealed by an incident that

occurred as he worked setting out tomato plants.  He became so

intrigued with the question "Why do the roots of the plant grow down

and the branches shoot up?" that he quit immediately, demanded his pay,

and went directly to a library, where he began an exhaustive study of

botany and biology.  He learned sentence structure and writing style by

reading and rereading the works of Montaigne.  While his methods and

lifestyle were unorthodox, we must admire and should emulate his

example of self-confidence and individuality.



	Still another example, closer to home, is that of Elder Richard L.

Evans, deceased, formerly of the Twelve, who for many years was the

voice of the Spoken Word on Temple Square.  Several years ago, in

attending a conference in the Salt Lake Bonneville Stake, he brought

with him detailed instructions about a new program.  Realizing his

words on administrative matters would carry little weight because of

his sketchy experience in that field, he reviewed the material in the

most brief way and explained that the handout he intended to leave

behind would provide the details.  He then made this comment, which I

have never forgotten: "I know what I am. I am a microphonist and a

pulpiteer."



	There comes a time in each life when one must accept himself for

what he is, must accept the role that time and circumstance have

imposed upon him, and must begin to work and to grow in the place where

he has been planted.  There comes a time when one must realize that

imitation is suicide and that the failure to develop innate talents and

abilities is, in truth, a rejection both of the god who made him and of

the earthly parents who gave him birth and nourished him.



	A fundamental objective in the premortal existence, in the

creation of the U.S. Constitution, and in the teachings of the Church

is to nourish and encourage our innate capacities and abilities.  The

rejection of Satan's plan of compulsion in the premortal existence once

and for all affirmed the right of freedom of choice, the right of

self-determination, the right to follow wherever our talents and

inclination might lead us.  The assertion in the Declaration of

Independence that we are endowed by our Creator with certain

inalienable rights-life, liberty, and the pursuit of

happiness-reaffirms that concept.  And that affirmation is seen again

in the modern revelation that we ought not to be commanded in all

things, that we should bring to pass much righteousness by the acts of

our own free will because "The power is in us" (see D&C 58:28).  So,

the mandate of God in the premortal existence, through earthly prophets

and through wise men raised up for that purpose, is that we should be

individuals, that we should develop our God-given talents, and that we

should follow the path indicated by our own special qualities and

talents.



	But while in one breath we admonish our people to develop their

individuality, while we urge them toward an endless diversity, in the

very next breath we enjoin upon them the need for unity, the need to be

one.  We remind them of the heavenly mandate "If ye are not one ye are

not mine" (D&C 38:27).  And by way of confirmation, we cite the

injunctions of our leaders like Brigham Young and J. Reuben Clark.  The

essence of this unity is found in Christ's admonition to his disciples

that they should be one, even as he and his father are one.  It is

found also in the motto to be found on our paper currency: E Pluribus

Unum-"one out of many." Thus, this mandate does not envision any loss

of individuality or separate identity.  It merely contemplates a unity

in purpose, a unity in objective, a unity in observing those principles

that lead to perfection and that insure freedom that protects the

rights of individuality.



	President Spencer W. Kimball gave emphasis to these two different

yet complementary principles.  His first public statement after

becoming President of the Church enjoined its members to a unity, a

unity in observing the principles of the gospel.  Later, in the Ensign,

he enjoined the members of the Church to seek diversity, to develop

individual talents.  Said the prophet:



	In our world, there have risen brilliant stars in drama, music,

literature, sculpture, painting, science and all the graces.  For long

years I have had a vision of [members of the Church] greatly increasing

[their] already strong position of excellence till the eyes of all the

world will be upon us.



	President John Taylor so prophesied, as he emphasized his words

with this directive: "You mark my words, and write them down and see if

they do not come to pass.  You will see the day that Zion will be far

ahead of the outside world in everything pertaining to learning of

every kind as we are today in regard to religious matters.  God expects

Zion to become the praise and glory of the whole earth, so that kings

hearing of her fame will come and gaze upon her glory," [Education for

Eternity, Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year (Provo: 12

September 1967), pp. 12-13; this talk was excerpted in "The Gospel

Vision of the Arts," Ensign, July 1977, pp. 2-51]



A Pearl Without Price



	As we contemplate the vision of these prophets, each of us must

ask, "How can I develop to the fullest extent the inherent talents and

abilities I possess?" In answering, we must recognize that everything

begins within ourselves, within our own minds, for in earth life it is

in the mind that all things originate.



	I never cease to marvel at the complexities and the power of the

human mind.  I was reminded of this recently when, in a restaurant, I

heard a voice from behind call my name and say, "Hello." I turned to

look upon a man who, at first glance, appeared to be a stranger, but

who in a moment I recognized as an old friend from long ago almost

hidden behind the mask of his advancing years.  With that recognition,

his name came to mind, along with mental images of the circumstances

under which we had first met and of incidents that had passed between

us thereafter.  This whole episode did not take more than a few seconds

and was triggered by the visual image that passed from the eye to the

brain--all else was automatic.  But the marvelous retrieval system of

the human mind is actuated not only by visual impulses, but also by

sounds and by smells, by tastes and by touch.



	I never, for example, smell a certain brand of hand soap but that

there appears on the screen of memory the picture of a washstand just

off my grandmother's kitchen, where she always kept a bar of the same

kind of soap.  Nor do I ever smell the intermixed odors of a fruit and

vegetable stand but I see in my mind's eye a grocery store in Phoenix,

Arizona, where I worked as a teenager.  And I never smell or hear a UTA

bus but that I envision a ship in the Pacific on whose decks were

stacked numerous small craft whose motors emitted sounds and smells

exactly like Salt Lake's buses.



	Scientists tell us that the human brain comprises billions of

microscopic cells interconnected by an elaborate nervous system; it is

here that the numberless facts, figures, and images of a lifetime are

stored efficiently, waiting to be called forth by an experience of the

kind I have just described.  As far as we know, there is no limit to

the storage capacity of a normal, healthy, vigorous brain.



	But its use as an incomparable memory bank is not the only

function of the mind.  The cognitive part of it also has the power to

analyze, to compare, to differentiate, to make predictions based upon

known facts--almost the power to create new facts.  If, for example, I

were to see my neighbor at a commencement exercise and were to note the

name of his son on the list of graduates, my mind would automatically

conclude that my neighbor was there to see his son graduate.  Beginning

with elementary operations of this kind, the mind moves on to evermore

complex and sophisticated operations to produce marvelous results.



	All we see about us, except those things that are part of God's

natural creation, sprang from the human mind.  The beautiful and

functional building in which we are sitting, all of its furnishings,

the clothing we wear, the jewelry that adorns our bodies, all these

originated in a human mind.  Outside stand our automobiles, and at home

the garages that house them.  Huge, floating cities ply the sea-lanes,

and beneath them cruise sophisticated atomic-powered submarines. 

Overhead fly ponderous airplanes that almost seem to defy the law of

gravity.  And beyond them are our satellites and spaceships.  All these

similarly had their origin in someone's brain.



	And this is not to mention our literary, our musical, and our

artistic productions. Nor, again, the special speculations of our

scientists and philosophers, all of which came from that same prolific

source: the human mind.



	In light of all this, we are led to exclaim that the human brain

is not merely a pearl of great price: It is a pearl without price, for

there is no amount of wealth, no human intelligence, or ingenuity that

can replace or restore the mind once it has been destroyed or seriously

damaged.  And against this background, is it not strange that so little

careful attention is given to the maintenance, the cultivation, and the

use of the human brain?



	We take so much for granted.  Anyone seriously interested in the

proper maintenance of the mind must of necessity begin with the body in

which it is housed.  Generally speaking, it is not possible for a mind

to function above the level of the health and vigor of the body that

houses it.  They are too intermingled to differentiate.  Thus, the mind

partakes of both the strengths and the weaknesses of the body housing

it.



	Blessed are the Latter-day Saints who have revelations direct from

God about the maintenance of the body.  The Word of Wisdom, for

example, gives us the do's and don'ts of proper diet.  We are enjoined

to eat fruits and vegetables freely in season; to use the whole grains;

to be sparing in our use of meat; to abstain from the use of tea,

coffee, tobacco, and narcotics, or, in fact, of anything else deemed

detrimental to health.  It has always been a mystery to me that

otherwise intelligent and rational people persist in taking into their

bodies substances that weaken and debilitate them and that, in turn,

blunt the delicate and irreplaceable instrument of the mind.



	Some of you may have read of the report of an interview with a

health specialist who said that if a man owned a million-dollar horse

and regularly gave it a cup of coffee, a doughnut, and a cigarette for

breakfast, he would probably be reported to the Humane Society.



	While it is doubtful that few if any in this audience eat

breakfasts of this kind, it is likely that many eat breakfasts with

little more nutritional value and regularly starve their bodies.



	But a perfectly healthy mind in a vigorous, healthy body can be

disabled by factors originating within the mind itself, or within the

spirit the body houses.  These are usually rooted in feelings of fear

or guilt that can be of such intensity as to almost paralyze the mind

in its natural operations. I am acquainted with a professional man who,

without any apparent physical defect, became listless, remote, and

abstracted, and almost wholly incapable of carrying on his thriving

practice.  It was learned later that this paralysis was caused by guilt

feelings growing out of a serious moral transgression he had committed. 

It was not until he recognized the root cause and had done what was

necessary to remedy it that he found relief.  Most of us are aware of

circumstances where a person has been rendered almost completely

immobile because of fear.  It is significant to Latter-day Saints that

the antidotes for these two disabling emotions are to be found in the

first principles of the gospel-faith and repentance.  We conquer fear

with faith and guilt with repentance.



	A healthy mind in a vigorous body, released from the shackles of

fear and guilt, is ready to be cultivated; and that term is used with

precision here because of the analogy to the cultivation of land.  We

must never forget that the law of the harvest applies to our minds as

it does to our farm.  If we sow deadly nightshade on the farm, we will

reap nightshade, not onions or tomatoes.  If we sow our minds with

vulgarity, pornography, and evil thoughts, so will the harvest be of

such.  President J.  Reuben Clark, who has provided us with an

excellent criterion for what we ought or ought not to read, said he did

not intend to read anything he did not wish to remember through

eternity.



	Since most people spend the lion's share of their lives in the

search for bread--that is, in getting the means necessary to maintain

life--it behooves us to fill our minds with all available knowledge

about our businesses and professions so as to enable us to do our work

in less time and with greater skill and profit, thereby leaving us more

leisure.



	But life not only should be habitable, it should be enjoyable. 

Our leisure should be spent, in part, filling our minds with ideas and

concepts that will enable us to develop our latent artistic, literary,

musical, athletic, and other talents for our enjoyment and benefit and

for the blessing of others.  If we use it correctly, the mind can be a

great resource against boredom and loneliness in old age or in times of

illness or isolation.  I have been impressed by the statement of Elder

LeGrand Richards, who told his bedridden wife, "Mama, the Lord gave us

memory so we can smell the roses in December."



	The mind can also serve as a shield against danger or

transgression in the future.  If we will think of the possible dangers

or temptations we may face in the future and will now devise steps to

be taken at that time best calculated to guard us, our minds,

programmed as it were for that purpose, will come to our rescue and

help provide needed protection.



	But the highest and most important use of the mind is to lead us

to peace in this life and exaltation in the world to come.  We may hope

to attain these goals by filling our minds with the holy scriptures, by

living according to their precepts, and by having the Spirit of the

Lord with us.



	Meanwhile, we should use our minds and our wills to live lives of

joy and achievement.  There are many in the audience who have vast,

untapped talents and abilities.  We urge you not to delay in taking

positive steps to develop them.



	Let me share with you more of the vision of President Spencer W.

Kimball about your future.  He said:



	With regard to masters, surely there must be many Wagners . . . in

the [Church], approaching him or yet to come in the tomorrows--young

people with love of art, talent supreme, and eagerness to create.  I

hope we ... may produce men greater than this German composer, Wagner,

but less eccentric, more spiritual.... [p. 131]



	If we strive for perfection, the best and greatest, and are never

satisfied with mediocrity, we can excel.  In the field of both

composition and performance, why cannot [someone] write a greater

oratorio than Handel's "Messiah?" . . . [p. 14]



	Oh, how our world needs statesmen! And we ask again with George

Bernard Shaw, "Why not?" We have the raw material, we have the

facilities, we can excel in training.  We have the spiritual climate. 

We must train statesmen, not demagogues; men of integrity, not

weaklings who for a mess of pottage will sell their birthright....



	For years I have been waiting for someone to do justice in

recording in song and story and painting and sculpture the story of the

restoration.... the struggles ... and inner revolutions and

counterrevolutions of those first decades. ["Education for Eternity,"

p. 18]



	I personally have the feeling that some of those whom President

Kimball saw are seated here before me, and to you, especially, I would

address this final admonition in the words of the writer, Thomas

Carlyle:



	Produce! Produce! Were it but the pitifullest, infinitesimal

fraction of a product, produce it in God's name.  It is the utmost thou

hast in thee. Out with it then.  Up, up.  Whatsoever thy hand findeth

to do, do it with thy whole might.  Work while it is called today, for

the night cometh when no man can work.



	I say this in the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.



                       "WHAT WILL YOU MAKE ROOM

                          FOR IN YOUR WAGON?"

                            Ardeth G. Kapp



     Ardeth G. Kapp is the Young Women general president of The Church

     of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This devotional address was

     given on 13 November 1990 in the Marriott Center.



	I'm grateful, brothers and sisters, for the privilege of being on

this campus and participating in any way in the mission of this

university and your part in it as you accept the opportunity to learn

and prepare to go forth and serve.  The thoughts I would like to share

with you today I believe fit under the title "What Will You Make Room

for in Your Wagon?" It might be considered a self-talk message for my

benefit as well as for yours.



	A number of years ago, when I was a beginning teacher in

elementary school, I had the superintendent's daughter in my

fourth-grade class.  She had some learning difficulties.  I was anxious

for her to learn as quickly as possible.  After many attempts with only

a blank stare in response to my efforts to teach her long division, at

one moment she jumped up and excitedly announced, "Finally you said it

right.  I've got it.  I've got it." I pray that the Spirit of the Lord

will bless us so that the things I have prepared will be of help to

you.



Drawing from Our Time Bank



	Some time ago, one of the students on this campus called my home

to report what sounded to me like a condition of epidemic proportions. 

It was just before finals.  Shelly, who happens to be my niece,

explained that she and her roommates were stressed out and needed a

place to escape for the weekend.  I, of course, was delighted to

provide the place.  They said there had hardly been a weekend or even a

day when they had not been completely overloaded.  "So much to do and

so little time" was their comment as they talked of schedules,

commitments, expectations, pressures, and even some anxieties about

dates, deadlines, decisions, finances, future obligations, and

unlimited opportunities.



	With so many wonderful opportunities, maybe you could take

advantage of it all if you could stay up long enough, get up early

enough, run fast enough, and live long enough.  It has been said that

if you're willing to burn the candle at both ends, you might get by,

but only if the candle is long enough.



	We all seem to be looking for ways to do more faster.  Nowadays we

can watch one TV show while we tape another and fast forward to

eliminate the commercials.  We read condensed books and eat fast foods. 

Some would have us believe that the more appointments we have in our

day planner, the more successful we are.  The plague of our day is the

thought repeating in our minds like the steady ticking of a clock: "I

do not have time.  I do not have time." And yet we have all there is.



	Today we read of stress management, the Epstein-Barr Syndrome,

overload, and overexhaustion.  In an effort to escape some of the

pressures of our day, we see an increased consumption of alcohol, the

improper use of prescription drugs, other related social ills,

immorality, and even suicide.  And yet never before has there been such

evidence of increased knowledge and expanding opportunities.  It has

been said that "We have exploded into a free-wheeling multiple-option

society" (John Naisbitt, Megatrends (New York: Warner Books, 1982),

introduction, p. xxiii).  We are faced with the burden of too many

choices.  I have discovered that even the purchase of a simple tube of

toothpaste poses many options considering brand, flavor, size, cost,

ingredients, and promises.  We speak of high tech and high touch,

hardware and software, and find we need increasing self-reliance as the

options multiply at an accelerated pace.



	William James, the noted American psychologist and philosopher,

states:



	Neither the nature nor the amount of our work is accountable for

the frequency and severity of our breakdowns, but their cause lies

rather in those absurd feelings of hurry and having no time, in that

breathlessness and tension; that anxiety . . . , that lack of inner

harmony and ease. [Quoted by William Osler in A Way Of Life (New York:

P. B. Hoeber, 1937), p. 30]



	Too often we allow ourselves to be driven from one deadline,

activity, or opportunity to the next.  We check events off our calendar

and think, "After this week things will let up" or "After this

semester" or "After graduation, then the pressure will ease." We live

with false expectations.  Unless we learn to take control of the

present, we will always live in anticipation of better days in the

future.  And when those days arrive, we shall still be looking ahead,

making it difficult to enjoy the here and now.  The beautiful fall

leaves come and go, and in our busyness we miss them.  "Given another

season, we'll do better," we say.



	We live in a time when we can do more, have more, see more,

accumulate more, and want more than in any time ever known.  The

adversary would keep us busily engaged in a multitude of trivial things

in an effort to keep us distracted from the few vital things that make

all of the difference.



	When we take control of our lives, we refuse to give up what we

want most, even if it means giving up some of what we want now.  Former

president Jeffrey R. Holland reminded students to "postpone your

gratification so you don't have to postpone your graduation" (Jeffrey

R. Holland, "The Inconvenient Messiah," in BYU Speeches, 1981-82, p.

82).  And how is this to be accomplished?



	I believe the most destructive threat of our day is not nuclear

war, not famine, not economic disaster, but rather the despair, the

discouragement, the despondency, the defeat caused by the discrepancy

between what we believe to be right and how we live our lives.  Much of

the emotional and social illness of our day is caused when people think

one way and act another.  The turmoil inside is destructive to the

Spirit and to the emotional well-being of one who tries to live without

clearly defined principles, values, standards, and goals.



	Principles are mingled with a sense of values.  They magnify each

other.  Striving to live the good life is dependent upon values to

measure our progress as we learn to like and dislike what we ought to. 

We learn to be honest by habit, as a matter of course.  The question

shouldn't be "What will people think?" but "What will I think of

myself?" We must have our own clearly defined values burning brightly

within.  Values provide an inner court to which we can appeal for

judgment of our performance and our choices.



	We live in a time when too often success is determined by the

things we gather, accumulate, collect, measure, and even compare in

relation to what others gather, accumulate, collect, measure, and

compare.  This pattern of living invites its own consequences and

built-in stress.  Maybe you heard of the woman who received a call from

her banker explaining that she was overdrawn, to which she promptly

replied, "No, sir, I am not overdrawn.  My husband may have

underdeposited, but I am not overdrawn."



	It is possible that we try to overdraw from our time bank and

suffer the nagging and debilitating stress of bankruptcy.  The

difference, however, is more significant than our money bank.  Only

twenty-four hours a day is deposited for an indefinite period of time. 

No more and no less.



	It is as we learn to simplify and reduce, prioritize and cut back

on the excesses that we have enough time and money for the essentials,

for all that we ultimately want in the end and even more.



The Value of Careful Pruning



	This fall some friends came to our home with their children and

brought with them a case of the most beautiful, large peaches I have

ever seen.  They were almost unbelievable in their size, their beauty,

and their flavor.  Brother Pitt explained that they had just won first

prize at the county fair for their peaches, and they had an orchard

full of them.  I asked how you produce such remarkable fruit, and the

family was eager to explain.  "We learned how to prune the peach trees

and thin the weak fruit," they said.  "It's hard work and must be done

regularly."



	"We also learned what happens when you don't prune," said one of

the children.  Their father had wisely suggested that three trees in

the orchard be left to grow without the harsh results of the pruning

knife.  They explained to me that the fruit from these trees was not

only very small in size but did not have the sweet taste of the other

fruit.  The lesson was obvious.  There was no question in their minds

about the far-reaching value of careful pruning.



	In an article in BYU Today entitled "Misplaced Pride" by McKinley

Tabor, speaking at an ethics conference for the Marriott School of

Management, he shared his feelings.  Reflecting back regretfully on

some misplaced priorities, he said,



	I was aggressive in wanting to own things, in wanting to make a

lot of money, in wanting to be the big duck in a little pond.  Now I

focus on things like my children, on my family life in general, on

experiencing things instead of owning things.  I like to go places and

see new things and meet new people where before I liked to own cars and

have big bank accounts.  The things that are important to me now are

things that stay with you a lot longer than a dollar bill. [McKinley

Tabor, "Misplaced Pride," BYU Today, July 1989, pp. 17-19]



	In the book The Star Thrower, Loren Eiseley writes of the beaches

of Costabel and tells how the tourists and professional shell

collectors, with a kind of greedy madness, begin early in the morning

in their attempts to outrun their less-aggressive neighbors as they

gather, collect, and compete.  After a storm, people are seen hurrying

along with bundles, gathering starfish in their sacks.  Following one

such episode, the writer says:



	I met the star thrower...



	. . . He was gazing fixedly at something in the sand.



	Eventually he stooped and flung the object beyond the breaking

surf...



	. . . "Do you collect?"  [I asked.]



	"Only like this," he said softly. . . . "And only for the living."

He stooped again, oblivious of my curiosity, and skipped another star

neatly across the water.



	"The stars," he said, "throw well.  One can help them. " . . .



	... For a moment, in the changing light, the sower appeared

magnified, as though casting larger stars upon some greater sea.  He

had, at any rate, the posture of a god....



	I picked [up] and flung [a] star...



	. . . I could have thrown in a frenzy of joy, but I set my

shoulders and cast, as the thrower in the rainbow cast, slowly,

deliberately, and well.  The task was not to be assumed lightly for it

was men as well as starfish that we sought to save. [Loren Eiseley, The

Star Thrower (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978), pp. 171-72,

184]



	While gatherers carry bags weighed down with the accumulation of

their possessions, star throwers find their joy in picking up those who

would otherwise die on the sandy beach.



	Like the Star Thrower, often those who have nothing visible to

show for their labors are those individuals who are filled, rewarded,

and energized by a labor that invigorates, motivates, inspires, and has

a purpose of such far-reaching significance that they are driven by a

power beyond themselves.  This power is most often felt when we are in

the service of our fellow beings, for in that service, as King Benjamin

taught, we are in the service of our God (Mosiah 2:17).



	We read about the pioneers who, in the early history of the

Church, left their possessions, "their things," and headed west.  Those

who were with the handcart company who would push or pull their carts

into the wilderness would give much thought to what they would make

room for in their wagons and what they would be willing to leave

behind.  Even after the journey began, some things had to be unloaded

along the way for people to reach their destination. In our season of

abundance and excess, even while we are counseled to reduce and

simplify, there will be a high level of frustration until we understand

the value of pruning.  When someone asks the question, "How do you do

it all?" our answer should be, "We don't." We must be willing to let go

of many things but defend with our lives the essentials.



	Now I believe it would be very easy for an inexperienced gardener

to approach the task of reducing and cutting back with such vigor that

he might take a saw and cut the tree down the center, through the

trunk, and into the roots.  Surely it would be cut back, but what of

the hope for the fruit? Wise pruning, like good gardening, takes

careful thought.  It is only when you are clear in your mind concerning

your values that you are free to simplify and reduce without putting at

risk what matters most.  Until we determine what is of greatest worth,

we are caught up in the unrealistic idea that everything is possible.



	Thomas Griffith, a contributing editor for Time magazine, once

summarized the problem this way.  Describing himself as a young man, he

said,



	I thought myself happy at the time, my head full of every popular

song that came along, the future, before me. I could be an artist, a

great novelist, an architect, a senator, a singer; having no

demonstrable capacity for any of these pursuits made them all appear

equally possible to me.  All that mattered, I felt, was my inclination;

I saw life as a set of free choices. Only later did it occur to me that

every road taken is another untaken, every choice a narrowing.  A

sadder maturity convinces me that, as in a chess game, every move helps

commit one to the next, and each person's situation at a given moment

is the sum of the moves he has made before. [Thomas Griffith, The

Waist-High Culture (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1949), p. 171



Focusing on the Real Essentials



	When we decide what is essential, we are released from the

gripping position of doubtful indecision and confusion.  It is while a

person stands undecided, uncommitted, uncovenanted, with choices

waiting to be made, that the vulnerability of every wind that blows

becomes life threatening.  Uncertainty, the thief of time and

commitment, breeds vacillation and confusion.



	When our choices and decisions are focused on the accumulation of

visible possessions and valuable materials, we may find that the

acquisition of these things feeds an insatiable appetite and leaves us

increasingly hungry.  In 2 Nephi the Lord warns us:



	Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor

your labor for that which cannot satisfy.  Hearken diligently unto me,

and remember the words which I have spoken; and come unto the Holy One

of Israel, and feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be

corrupted, and let your soul delight in fatness. [2 Nephi 9:51]



	When our time is spent in the accumulation of experiences that

nourish the spirit, we see with different glasses things that others do

not see and cannot understand.



	In the book The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, we

read about the importance of values and relationships.  The fox says to

the Little Prince, "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;

what is essential is invisible to the eye" (Antoine de Saint-Exupery,

The Little Prince [New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1943], p. 70).



	One of the great examples of acquiring invisible possessions of

priceless value comes from the dramatic story told of Zion's Camp.  The

Missouri Saints were expelled from Jackson County in late November

1833.  Four months and twelve days later, 24 February 1834, Joseph

Smith was instructed to organize an army to restore the Saints to their

rightful ownership of land in Jackson County.  The group would march

1,000 miles in four months.  They would suffer sickness, deprivation,

and severe testing of every physical kind.



	Heber C. Kimball said, "I took leave of my wife and children and

friends, not knowing whether I would see them again in the flesh." It

was not unusual for them to march thirty-five miles a day, despite

blistered feet, oppressive heat, heavy rains, high humidity, hunger,

and thirst.  Armed guards were posted around the camp at night.  At

4:00 a.m. the trumpeter roused the weary men with reveille on an old,

battered French horn.  Zion's Camp failed to help the Missouri Saints

regain their lands and was marred by some dissension, apostasy, and

unfavorable publicity, but a number of positive results came from the

journey.  Zion's Camp chastened, polished, and spiritually refined many

of the Lord's servants.  When a skeptic asked what he had gained from

his journey, Brigham Young promptly replied, "I would not exchange the

knowledge I have received this season for the whole of Geauga County"

("Church History in the Fulness of Times," prepared by the Church

Educational System, Salt Lake City, Utah, pp. 143-51).



	From among the members of Zion's Camp the Lord selected those who

would lead his church during the next five decades.  From the viewpoint

of preparation, the Zion's Camp experiences proved to be of infinite

value during the formative years of the Church.  Those Saints were

tried and tested.  They learned what they stood for, what they were

willing to live and die for, and what was of highest value.



	Today our tests are different.  We, are not called to load our

wagons and head west.  Our frontier and wilderness are of a different

nature, but we too must decide what we will make room for in our wagons

and what is of highest value.



	In recent months the Museum of Church History and Art has opened a

new exhibit entitled "A Covenant Restored." As you enter, you begin to

remember in a new way the price paid by those who came before us. 

Standing at the edge of a very rough-hewn log cabin, you feel something

of the commitment and sacrifice those early Saints made.  Erected

immediately next to this very humble dwelling, where life was sustained

by men and women with values, commitments, and covenants, we see a

replica in actual size of the beautiful window of the historic Kirtland

Temple.



	As you move along the path through the museum, you are emotionally

drawn from Kirtland on through the experiences that finally brought the

Saints to the valley of the Great Salt Lake.  At one point you see the

temple as the center of everything that drove them through these

incredible circumstances, and something happens inside.  I pondered in

ways that I haven't before the significance of the temple in their

lives and ours.



	I stood at the side of a handcart and wondered, "How did the

family decide what they would make room for in their wagons?" And what

will we make room for in our wagons? What is of greatest importance in

life?



	One year as I was driving myself and my niece Shelly, who was then

seven years old, back from a trip to Vernon, British Columbia, I had an

experience that has helped me as I try to improve my ability to prune

wisely and to load or unload my wagon, as the case may be.



	During the trip when we were not playing the tape "Winnie the

Pooh" for the hundredth time, Shelly would be asleep in the backseat of

the car, and I had many hours and many miles to weigh, compare, and

wonder.  I had gone to Canada to take care of my sister's family of

nine children while she was in the hospital with her tenth baby.  After

a week of doing laundry, matching socks, tending to paper routes,

meals, lessons, car pooling, bedtime stories, lunch money, settling

disputes over time spent in the bathroom, finding shoes, and planning

for family home evening, I felt overwhelmed to say the least.  At the

appointed time my sister returned with a babe in arms.  I stood in awe

and reverence as I watched her step back into that routine with the

ease and harmony of a conductor leading a well-trained orchestra with

each player coming in on cue.  It was a miracle to me.



	As I thought of her life and mine, I began measuring what I was

not doing in comparison to what she was doing.  We do that, you know. 

I began wondering and feeling discouraged, despondent, even depressed.



	At that moment, somewhere between the Canadian border and Spokane,

my father's voice came into my mind.  He had passed away two years

before, but his voice was as clear as though he were sitting by my

side.  "My dear," he said, "don't worry about the little things.  The

big things you agreed to before you came." And for the rest of the

journey, between moments of listening to "Winnie the Pooh," I asked

myself over and over again, "What are the big things in life? What is

essential? What is the purpose of life?" I share this experience with

you, my brothers and sisters, because I believe there are times when

these same questions weigh heavily on your mind.



	The years have passed since that experience, and Shelly has traded

Winnie the Pooh for the more important things.  She has just recently

received her mission call to New Zealand.  She is now willing to leave

important things behind, including ballroom dancing, which for Shelly

borders on being essential, to go forth and teach the real essentials,

the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Elder John A. Widtsoe wrote:



	In our pre-existent state, in the day of the great council, we

made a certain agreement with the Almighty.  The Lord proposed a plan,

conceived by him. We accepted it.  Since the plan is intended for all

men, we become parties to the salvation of every person under that

plan.  We agreed, right then and there, to be not only saviors for

ourselves, but measurably saviors for the whole human family.  We went

into a partnership with the Lord.



	The working out of the plan became then not merely the Father's

work, and the Savior's work, but also our work.  The least of us, the

humblest, is in partnership with the Almighty in achieving the purpose

of the eternal plan of salvation. That places us in very responsible

attitude towards the human race.



	Like the Star Thrower, it is in helping to save others that we

find our pleasure and joy, our labor, and ultimately our glory.  Elder

Widtsoe further states:



	If the Lord's concern is chiefly to bring happiness and joy,

salvation, to the whole human family, we cannot become like the Father

unless we too engage in that work.  There is no chance for the narrow,

selfish, introspective man in the kingdom, of God.  He may survive in

the world of men; he may win fame, fortune and power before men, but he

will not stand high before the Lord unless he learns to do the works of

God, which always points toward the salvation of the whole human

family. [Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine, October 1943, p.

289]



	Our understanding of and commitment to the covenants we have made

with God are the essentials.  Our day-to-day interactions, our

integrity, our moral conduct, our willingness to "bear one another's

burdens, that they may be light; ... to mourn with those that mourn; .

. . and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as

witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places"

(Mosiah 18:8-9) are at the very heart of our earth-life experience. 

Every decision should be made with that goal in mind, and we should

expect it to be difficult, very difficult.  We are to be tried and

tested in all things (see D&C 136:31).



Seeing Things from an Eternal



Perspective



	Some time ago, my husband and I visited the Mormon cemetery at

Winter Quarters, a monument to family members young and old buried in

graves along the trail as their families continued westward toward the

Rocky Mountains.  Of those people who had vision and faith in God, we

read,



	There are times and places in the life of every individual, every

people, and every nation when great spiritual heights are reached, when

courage becomes living thing . . . when faith in God stands as the

granite mountain wall, firm and immovable.... Winter Quarters was such

a time and place for the Mormon people. [Heber J.  Grant, remarks at

the dedication of the Winter Quarters Monument, 1936]



	A person who only looks for the visible may draw from this pioneer

experience what appears to be an obvious conclusion-families perished. 

But in the eternal perspective, they did not.  It was their willingness

to sacrifice everything, even life if necessary, that would ensure the

eternal lives of these families.



	And what of our Winter Quarters and Zion's Camp experiences? Times

of difficulty try the faith of all who profess to be Latter-day Saints

and follow the prophets.  We are walking in the well-worn paths of

those who preceded us in the quest for Zion.  Help and comfort are

available to us through sources beyond our own immediate strength, just

as they were for those who have gone before us.



	It has been said that trials are at the core of saintliness. 

Through our covenant relationship with Jesus Christ, we do all that we

can do, and by the grace of God he does the rest.



	The Lord has promised us,



	Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will

give you rest.



	Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in

heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.



	For my yoke, is easy, and my burden is light.  [Matthew 11:28-30]



	One of the early pioneers testified,



	I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from

illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the

other.  I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hillslope,

and I have said, "I can go only that far and there I must give up for I

cannot pull the load through it.  " . . . I have gone on to that sand

and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me.  I haze looked back

many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I

knew then that the angels of God were there. [Relief Society Magazine,

January 1948, p. 8, as quoted in James E. Faust, "The Refiner's Fire,"

Ensign, May 1979, p. 53]



	It is with faith in God that we must condition ourselves to let go

of everything if necessary.  For some of us it may require unloading

bad habits, attitudes, disobedience, arrogance, selfishness, and pride.



	Just this summer our family came in possession of the first letter

written to my grandmother by her mother when my grandmother left her

home in England as a young immigrant.  She left everything behind

because someone taught her of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  She joined

the Saints in America and eventually moved to Canada.  For fear of

being persuaded to remain in England, she did not tell her family of

her conversion to the Church or her plans to leave until after.  That

first letter received from her mother reads in part:



	My dearest daughter ... whatever on earth has caused you to go out

of your own country and away from all your friends, I cannot imagine. 

You say, "Don't fret."  How do you think I can help it when such a blow

as that come to struck me all up in a heap?  You say you are happy, but

I can't think it, for I am sure I could not have been happy to have

gone into a foreign country and left you behind.  You say you will come

again, but I don't think you will hesitate your life over the deep

waters again.  When I think about it, I feel wretched.  You had a good

place and a good home to come to whenever you liked.  And I must say

that I loved the very ground you walked upon, and now I am left to fret

in this world.  But still, all the same for that, I wish you good luck

and hope the Lord will prosper you in every way.  I remain, your loving

Mother. [Personal Files]

	They never saw each other again in this earth life.  And none of

her family joined the Church.  However, their temple work has been done

for them.



	What is it that drives a people to sacrifice all if necessary to

receive the blessings available only in the temple? It is their faith

and a spiritual witness of the importance of our covenants with God and

our immense possibilities. lt is in the temple, the house of the Lord,

that we participate in ordinances and covenants that span the distance

between heaven and earth and prepare us to return to God's presence and

enjoy the blessings of eternal families and eternal life.



	A few weeks after my visit to the Kirtland Temple, I was standing

at the water's edge of the baptismal font in the small Manila Temple in

the Philippines.  Many of those dear Saints had traveled for three days

in the heat and humidity by boat to come and participate in sacred

ordinances available only in the temple.  On one of these islands in a

small, primitive nipa hut, I visited with a family of Latter-day

Saints.  A beautiful young fourteen year old in this humble setting

listened intently while her father explained that in 1991, by saving

all they could, the family would have enough to go to the Manila

Temple, where they could be sealed as a family forever.



	When we understand that our covenants with God are essential to

our eternal life, these sacred promises become the driving force that

helps us lighten our load, prioritize our activities, eliminate the

excesses, accelerate our progress, and reduce the distractions that

could, if not guarded, get us mired down in mud while other wagons move

on.  If any of you are burdened with sin and sorrow, transgression and

guilt, then unload your wagon and fill it with obedience, faith, and

hope, and a regular renewal of your covenants with God.



	President Kimball reminded us, "Since immortality and eternal life

constitute the sole purpose of life, all other interests and activities

are but incidental thereto" (Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of

Forgiveness [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1969], p. 2).



	Does that suggest that there should be no football, fashion, fancy

food, or fun? Of course not.  But these things are incidental to the

real purpose of our earth life.  Our purpose in life provides the

compass and keeps us on course while we enjoy the journey.  If we are

found to be long faced, sober, and sanctimonious, we will be guilty of

portraying a false image of the joys of the gospel.  As the pioneers

traveled, there was singing and dancing.  In their camaraderie, a

covenant people built a community with a strong sense of brotherhood

and sisterhood.  People with common values and goals strengthened one

another in joy and sorrow, in sickness and health.  They sustained one

another as they prepared to make and keep sacred covenants.



	There is a unique strength that comes when a group of faithful

Saints, however large or small, band together and encourage each other

in righteousness.



	As we take an inventory of the things we are carrying in our

wagons and make decisions about what we will be willing to leave behind

and what we will cling to, we have guidance.  The Lord has given us a

great promise to which I bear my testimony.  He has said,



	Therefore, if you will ask of me you shall receive; if you will

knock it shall be opened unto you.



	Seek to bring forth and establish my Zion.  Keep my commandments

in all things.



	And, if you keep my commandments and endure to the end you shall

have eternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God.

[D&C 14:5-7]



	We live in a time when the things of the world would, if possible,

press in upon us and close out the things of God.  May we turn our

attention from the glitter of the world as we give thanks for the glory

of the gospel, in the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.



                             STANDARDS OF

                     STANDARD-BEARERS OF THE LORD

                           Russell M. Nelson



     Russell M. Nelson is a member of the Council of the Twelve of The

     Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This fireside

     address was delivered on 6 January 1991 in the Mariott Center.



	Sister Nelson and I are happy to be with you.  I convey love and

best wishes for a happy New Year from the First Presidency and the

Quorum of the Twelve.  We express our gratitude to Presidents Rex E.

Lee and Kerry Romesburg, their companions, and members of their faculty

and staff from both Brigham Young University and Utah Valley Community

College for their marvelous service.  And we express appreciation to

our Regional Representative, stake presidents, and their partners here

tonight.



	We are especially delighted to be with you students.  You

recognize, as we do, that you are a fortunate few.  Many more

throughout the world would give anything to be where you are.  Many

have been called to military duty elsewhere in the world.  They would

gladly trade places with you.  Surely our prayers are for peace and for

each individual on assignment away from family and loved ones at this

time.



	We have so much for which we can be thankful.  This is the first

Sunday of a new year.  Nineteen-ninety has been most historic.  In what

was known a few months ago as the German Democratic Republic,

missionaries are now reaping a rich harvest in a unified Federal

Republic of Germany.  Many new missions were created, including those

in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Greece.  And in lesser numbers,

wonderful servants of the Lord labor as his representatives in

Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, and Russia.  None of this was

so when I was here a year ago.  The year 1991 promises to be equally

exciting in this rapidly growing church (see D&C 65:2).  Each of us, if

properly prepared, can play an important part in fulfilling its divine

destiny.

 



	I hope my message tonight will help us and the Church to realize

our remarkable individual and institutional potential. The title chosen

for my message is "Standards of Standard-Bearers of the Lord." You will

note there are three parts to the title.  I would like to discuss the

last mentioned first, because the Lord is the chief cornerstone on

which this Church is based.  Next, I should like to discuss his

standard-bearers.  Finally, I should like to discuss his standards.



The Lord and His Atonement



	Let us first contemplate the Lord Jesus Christ and his atonement. 

In a very real way, it affects each of our lives and the lives of every

human being who ever lived.  Understanding the significance of his

atonement is fundamental to choices we make in all facets of our lives. 

The atonement of the Lord is central to our faith (see Teachings, p.

121).



	We are scripturally bound to study it and to teach it.  From the

book of Moses, may I quote these words of God:



	I give unto you a commandment, to teach these things freely unto

your children, saying:



	That by reason of transgression cometh the fall, which fall

bringeth death, and inasmuch as ye were born into the world by water,

and blood, and the spirit, which I have made, and so became of dust a

living soul, even so ye must be born again into the kingdom of heaven,

of water, and of the Spirit, and be cleansed by blood, even the

[atoning] blood of mine Only Begotten; that ye might be sanctified from

all sin, and enjoy the words of eternal life in this world, and eternal

life in the world to come, even immortal glory;



	For by the water ye keep the commandment; by the Spirit ye are

justified, and by the blood ye are sanctified;



	Therefore it is given to abide in you. [Moses 6:58-61]



	But before one can comprehend the atonement of Christ, one must

first understand the fall of Adam.  And before one can comprehend the

fall of Adam, one must first understand the Creation. These three

pillars of eternity relate to one another.



	In the beginning God created the earth and all that was upon it. 

He created man in his own image, male and female created he them (see

Genesis 1:27; 5:2; D&C 20:18; Moses 2:27; 6:9).  Adam and Eve were

first created with bodies of flesh and spirit, without blood, and were

unable to die or beget children.  Thus we might describe this as a

paradisiacal creation, one that initially equipped Adam and Eve to live

in the Garden of Eden, which was in a state of everlasting paradise

(see Moses 4:28).



	Adam and Eve's subsequent fall effected a change upon their

bodies.  Although I don't understand completely the chemistry of that

change, somehow it permitted blood to circulate in their veins.  It

provided for processes of aging and death to come upon their

tabernacles of flesh.  And in a marvelous manner, it allowed the

blessing of procreation, so that myriads of awaiting spirits could be

born and thus obtain mortal bodies.  The fall was a necessary part of

Heavenly Father's plan for his children.  Indeed, "Adam fell that men

might be, and men are, that they might have joy" (2 Nephi 2:25).  The

so-called fall of Adam might thus be termed the mortal creation.  It

allowed mankind to attain and endure the mortal experience, to enjoy

posterity, and then to leave this period of probation through the

portal of death.



	Adam and Eve's fall, however, and subsequent sins of their

posterity, cut mankind off from the presence of God.  An atonement, or

reconciliation, had to be made.  And only God could make it.  Even

before the Creation was completed, the premortal Jehovah understood the

need for an atonement.  Even before breath was put into the man Adam,

the Christ knew that a Savior would be required.  He understood his

responsible role.  He was to be born into mortality to suffer, to

bleed, and to die.



	Why?



	That each of us might ultimately be at one (atoned) with God after

our mortal experience, that we might be able to live with him once

again, as we did as spirit beings before our birth.  His atonement

would allow our resurrection from the dead.  Then our bodies would be

changed to those of flesh and spirit and be able to dwell in the

presence of God.  The effects of the atonement might thus be expressed

as the immortal creation, for "as in Adam all die, even so in Christ

shall all be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22).



	No serious student of the life of Christ can fail to be deeply

moved by the Lord's own personal testimonies of his atoning experience. 

Even though he knew what was required, the record states that he felt "

sore amazed, and to be very heavy" (Mark 14:33; see also verses 35-36).



	His high commission he completed at Gethsemane and on Calvary's

cross.  There he gave this last testimony: "It is finished" (John

19:30).  The plan was consummated.  He had fulfilled his earlier

prophecy: "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the

world" (John 18:37).



	It is not surprising that the Lord Jesus personally testified of

this atoning experience in these latter days when the gospel was

restored.  He spoke these words and caused them to be recorded for all

of us to comprehend:



	Wherefore, I command you to repent, and keep the commandments

which you have received by the hand of my servant Joseph Smith, Jun.,

in my name;



	And it is by my almighty power that you have received them;



	Therefore I command you to repent--repent, lest I smite you by the

rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings

be sore--how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how

hard to bear you know not.



	For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they

might not suffer if they would repent;



	But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;



	Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to

tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both

body and spirit-- and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and

shrink--



	Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished

my preparations unto the children of men. [D&C 19:13-19]



	It seems almost beyond comprehension to think that he paid this

enormous price for me and for each of you.  And yet, as far as we are

concerned individually, unless you and I do our part, his atonement

will have been in vain.  It is that covenant relationship--that mutual

trust-- that makes his atonement such a personal gift.  It brings us

protection, perennial hope, and the promise of joy.



Standard-Bearers



	Standard-bearers march at the vanguard of a worthy cause.  They

represent that which is good and noble.  They often carry flags or

other symbols to express identity, purpose, and unity.



	Speaking of such standard-bearers, I was told a tender account

during the holiday season just past.  While children reenacted the

Christmas story, one child held high a star wrapped in aluminum foil,

mounted on a broomstick.  Later, someone commended the child for his

stamina in holding that star so high for such a long period of time. 

The child, who had spoken no lines, joyfully replied, "I had the most

important part in the play.  I showed people how to find Jesus."



	As his standard-bearers, we are to help the honest in heart to

find Jesus.  We don't wave flags.  And generally we don't carry stars

mounted on broomsticks.  Instead, as standard-bearers for Jesus the

Christ, we willingly and gratefully take his sacred name upon us.  We

enlist in his cause by covenant.



	Each standard-bearer has accepted this scriptural charge:



	If ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no

hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting

of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take

upon you the name of Christ, . . . by following your Lord and your

Savior down into the water [of baptism], . . . then shall ye receive

the Holy Ghost; . . . then can ye speak with the tongue of angels. [2

Nephi 31:13]



	So, standard-bearers first qualify by entering the covenant of

baptism.  They are thereby blessed with the gift of the Holy Ghost. 

Then they can speak effectively in leading others to the Lord (see D&C

11:21).



	Standard-bearers of the Lord regularly renew their qualifying

covenant of baptism.  When the sacrament is administered, words of

recommittal are offered in prayer to God in behalf of all who "are

willing to take upon them the name of [his] Son, and always remember

him, and keep his commandments which he hath given them, that they may

always have his Spirit to be with them" (Moroni 4:3; see D&C 20:37,

77).



	Standard-bearers of the Lord are the hope of Israel in Zion's

army.  They are chosen children of the promised day.  They are helping

to hasten his work in his time, just as he has decreed (see D&C 88:73).



	Meanwhile, the elect of the Lord are responding to personal

promptings to seek and surely find him.  Perhaps an example will serve

to illustrate.  A little more than a year ago, a "velvet revolution"

occurred in the country of Czechoslovakia, in which a restrictive

regime of forty years was overturned.  Political prisoners were

released from jail.  One of them later became the current president of

that country.  Last summer a twenty-one-year-old medical student in

Plzen, named Ales, determined to use his new freedom and his vacation

period to earn some money and to find God.  In June 1990 he came to New

York City.  There he was offered a job driving an automobile for a

rental agency.  The agency needed a car to be driven to Salt Lake City.



	Through an interpreter, he said, "I don't want to go to Salt Lake

City"



	They replied, "Do you want the job?"



	He said, "Yes, I want the job."

 



	"Then you will drive to Salt Lake City," they demanded.



	So this he did.  While there he went to Temple Square, where he

first met standard-bearers of the Lord.  He heard their message of the

restored gospel.  He studied intensively with missionaries in Salt Lake

City and then at the Missionary Training Center here in Provo.  In the

process, this very bright young man also learned the English language. 

In August he was baptized, following which he was brought in to meet

President Monson and me.  It was then we learned that one of the two

missionaries who had taught him the gospel in Utah was Elder Tobias

Burkhardt, son of the president and matron of the Freiberg Temple in

the former German Democratic Republic.  Ales has now returned to Plzen

to resume his medical studies.  He found his faith and now bears the

holy priesthood.  He also learned a new language and is in a position

to make great contributions to the work as a standard-bearer for the

Lord in Czechoslovakia and elsewhere.



Standards



	Standards of the Lord may be tangible or intangible.  In Old

Testament days, the children of Israel were told to "pitch their tents,

every man by his own camp, and every man by his own standard" (Numbers

1:52).



	More frequently cited, both in ancient and in modern scripture,

are spiritual standards.



	One week after Solomon had dedicated the first house of the Lord

built on Mount Moriah, the Master personally came to that temple and

accepted it as his holy house.  Then and there he taught the importance

of abiding by his standards of personal righteousness.  He said:



	If thou wilt walk before me, . . . and do according to all that I

have commanded thee, and shalt observe my statutes and my judgments;



	Then will I [establish] the throne of thy kingdom. [2 Chronicles

7:17-18]



	By way of reinforcement, the Master Teacher then added this

warning:



	But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments,

which I have set before you, . . . 



	Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have

sanctified for my name, will I cast out of my sight.  [2 Chronicles

7:19-20]



	But the ability of the people to hear and obey was stunted by

their lack of conviction.  Jeremiah recorded this stern reprimand of

the Lord:



	How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the

trumpet?



	For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish

children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil,

but to do good they have no knowledge.  [Jeremiah 4:21-22]



	Protective standards of righteousness were similarly stressed in

New Testament times.  Paul recorded this charge:



	Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and

having on the breastplate of righteousness;



	And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;



	Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able

to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.  

	And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit,

which is the word of God. [Ephesians 6:1 17; see D&C 27:15-18]



	Book of Mormon prophets likewise emphasized the importance of

correct standards.  One so wrote:



	I have spoken plainly unto you, that ye cannot misunderstand.  And

the words which I have spoken shall stand as a testimony against you; 

for they are sufficient to teach any man the right way; for the right

way is to believe in Christ and deny him not; for by denying him ye

also deny the prophets and the law.

	And now behold, I say unto you that the right way is to believe in

Christ, and deny him not; and Christ is the Holy One of Israel. [2

Nephi 25:28-29]



	This loving Lord again came to the earth in the latter days to

teach standards of light and truth to children of this generation.  Our

Redeemer said:



	I have sent mine everlasting covenant into the world, to be a

light to the world, and to be a standard for my people, . . . to be a

messenger before my face to prepare the way before me. [D&C 45:9]



	The Church and its membership are standards for the world. The

Lord said:



	For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

	Verily I say unto you all:  Arise and shine forth, that thy light

may be a standard for the nations. [D&C 115:4-5]



For the Strength of Youth



	With this background in mind, let us study the fundamental

standards expected of us as standard-bearers of the Lord today.  At

general conference time last fall, announcements were made of the

publication of a booklet entitled For the Strength of Youth.  If your

copy is handy, you may wish to refer to it as I continue.  Within its

pages are summary statements of certain vital standards.  These

statements were prepared by the Lord's anointed, mindful of this

scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants:



	It is an imperative duty that we owe to all the rising generation,

and to all the pure in heart--

	For there are many yet on the earth . . . who are only kept from

the truth because they know not where to find it.  [D&C 123:11-12; see

also Jeremiah 50:2; 1 Nephi 21:22]



	The scriptural statement then continues:



	These [standards] should then be attended to with great

earnestness.

	Let no [one] count them as small things; for there is much which

lieth in futurity, pertaining to the saints, which depends upon these

things. [D&C 123:14-15]



	The booklet reviews, in an abbreviated way, specific standards. 

Although much is included, much more could have been and is not. 

Sufficient detail is included to allow each of you to know what the

Lord expects of you.  In addition, you may studiously and prayerfully

consult with parents, teachers, and advisors when additional guidance

is deemed necessary.



	You know in a very real way the prevalence of immorality.  You are

aware that drugs, alcohol, steroids, and other harmful substances are

readily available.



	As you live in the midst of much that would harm you, heed this

verse of warning that closes chapter four of the Book of Mosiah.  A

prophet of the Lord is speaking:



	If ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words,

and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in

the faith of what ye have heard . . ., even unto the end of your lives,

ye must perish.  And now, . . . remember, and perish not.  [Mosiah

4:30]



	No prophet, no parent, no loving partner or person wants you to

"perish." If you are to be preserved, you must take the responsibility

to watch yourself, precisely as the scripture commands.



	For your protection, this little publication lists twelve

standards.  May I review them briefly and offer a comment about each of

these important standards.



	1. Dating. Begin with the end in mind, and let your beginnings be

bright.  The end you seek is a celestial family, enabled by your being

sealed in the temple to one you love.  So for now, choose companions

who make you better when you are with them--those who are willing to

take upon themselves the sacred name of the Lord, live his

commandments, and join with you in being one of his standard-bearers.



	2. Dress and Appearance.  This topic concerns  the importance of

personal choice.  As you clothe yourself modestly and groom yourself

attractively, your ability to make wise choices will be enhanced. 

Please pre-think your decisions.  Your body is a temple of God; honor

it.  Don't get caught in the squeeze of opposing pressures.  Downward

pressure to be worldly is contrary to the uplifting pressure to live in

accord with the Lord's standards.  Step aside from the squeeze and let

the elevating power of tile Lord lift you without restraint to your

loftiest heights.



	3. Friendship. Cultivate the companionship of good friends.  But

also seek to broaden your circle.  Reach and teach widely without fear. 

Enjoy opportunities to learn more from others.  Share your testimony

often and be a good friend to all you know.  Don't forget to take

advantage of choice friendshipping moments with parents, adults,

advisors, and bishops.  They will welcome your conversation.  Surely,

silent treatment is beneath the dignity of those who have taken upon

themselves the name of Christ.  And play your own part in helping to

make your home a place of partnership, prayer, and peace.



	4. Honesty. Personal standards should honestly govern every

action.  The honest person needs to remember only one version of an

event.  Those who don't obey standards they profess are called

"hypocrites." While the world will always be full of them, recognize

them for what they are and resolve to avoid their dishonest pattern of

behavior.  And remember, the payment of tithing will help discipline

your mild to be an honest one.



	5. Language. Language has the power to inspire and edify.  You

have the potential to speak with the tongue of an angel.  Speak kindly

of others.  Don't be vulgar or profane.  And for exciting new

opportunities in life, study the language of people in lands other than

your own.



	6. Media. This topic pertains to movies, television, radio,

videocassettes, books, magazines, and all other means that compete for

the attention of your precious sight and hearing.  Purveyors of

pornography would enslave you by making their addicting snares seem

desirable.  But don't put all the blame on the media.  The person who

patronizes smut must bear ultimate accountability.



	7. Mental and Physical Health. I have lived long enough now to

witness the demise of classmates and colleagues who unwisely chose to

disobey the Word of Wisdom (see D&C 89) and other divine counsel

regarding the care of their bodies.  I promise that as you keep the

commandments of your Heavenly Creator and follow instructions that he

has decreed for your benefit, you will be blessed in this life now and

forever more.



	8. Music, Dancing, and Other, Recreation The Lord expects us to

seek after things that are "virtuous, lovely, or of good report or

praiseworthy" (Articles of Faith 1:13).  Enjoy them and discern between

uplifting influences and those that might lead you away from standards

of the Lord.



	9. Sexual Purity.  What does that mean? It means you take upon

yourself the name of the Lord and reserve use of his gift of

procreative powers exactly as he has decreed.  These powers are not to

be abused in lust, adultery, fornication, or perverted behavior.  The

purpose of the Lord's atonement is to qualify you for eternal marriage

and everlasting joy with your predecessors and posterity.  Satan would

like to destroy the family and all that holds it together.  While the

world descends to the level of concern for "safe sex," your standard is

sacred sex--within the bounds of holy matrimony as intended by the

Lord.



	General terms used in the booklet such as, "moral cleanliness,"

"sexual purity," and "high standards" will become personally applicable

only when you literally take upon yourself the name of Jesus Christ and

do as he would have you do.



	10. The Sabbath Day.  I plead with you to do more than passively

follow lists of do's and don'ts compiled by others.  Generate your own

policies and live by them, Follow the standard of the Lord, who

centuries ago said: "My sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign

between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I

am the Lord that doth sanctify you" (Exodus 31:13, italics added; see

also Ezekiel 20:20).



	Additional guidance has been given in our dispensation, recorded

in section 59 of the Doctrine and Covenants (verses 9-13).



	Questions regarding appropriate behavior on the Sabbath are easily

resolved when you study these scriptures and then determine what sign

you choose to give to God of your regard for him.



	11. Spiritual Help.  Standard-bearers of the Lord have qualified

by covenant to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.  There can be no

greater guide to assure spiritual help through all your days.



	12. Repentance. We all make mistakes.  They are an important part

of our maturing experience.  But there is a real difference between a

mistake and sin.  Verses from modern revelation help distinguish the

two:



	And inasmuch as they erred it might be made known . . . 

	And inasmuch as they sinned they might be chastened, that they

might repent;

	And inasmuch as they were humble they might be made strong, and

blessed from on high, and receive knowledge from time to time. [D&C

1:25-28]

 



	The humble and prayerful person can be blessed with discernment

and be made strong.  And through the atonement of Jesus Christ, we can

repent and be forgiven.  For serious wrongdoing, or sin, confession to

one's bishop is necessary.  And remember, repentance is not repentance

until sins are forsaken and repeated no more (see D&C 58:42-43).



	Living in accord with these twelve standards will help us be

worthy standard-bearers of the Lord.  Then we can be his means of

serving our fellowmen (see John 13:35; Mosiah 2:17).



	Recognize the reality of the Redeemer and the power of the Lord's

atonement in your life.  Ponder this thought, phrased first as a

question then as a testimony: "Did he do all this-for me? Yes, he did

all this-for me!"



I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me,

Confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me.

I tremble to know that for me he was crucified,

That for me, a sinner, he suffered, he bled and died.

Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me

Enough to die for me!

Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me!

["I Stand All Amazed," Hymns, 1985, no. 193]



	His atonement is real.  He has established standards by which each

of us can become standard-bearers of the Lord.  I so testify in the

name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.



                           THE CONSTITUTION

                          AND THE RESTORATION

                              Rex E. Lee



     Rex E. Lee is the president of Brigham Young University.  This

     devotional address was given on 15 January 1991 in the Marriott

     Center.



	This morning I want to talk to you about a very important

relationship that exists between, on the one hand, our lives, our

practices, and our beliefs as participants in the restored gospel of

Jesus Christ and, on the other, the Constitution of the United States. 

In one sense, this topic is a timeless one, because the Restoration and

the Constitution trace their beginnings almost to the same point in

time, and over the intervening two centuries have grown and flourished

side by side.



	And yet, in another sense, the subject is not only timely, but

also time-driven.  Today's devotional is the last one that will occur

during the fifteen-year period from 1976 through the summer of 1991

that Congress officially designated as our bicentennial.  Bicentennial!

Over the past fifteen years--for most of you, the majority of your

conscious years--this word has virtually acquired a secondary meaning. 

Viewed narrowly, it has been a ceremonial observance of the most

remarkable period in the history of our nation, and perhaps in the

history of the world.  From a broader perspective, the bicentennial has

symbolized patriotism and liberty and has served as a valuable reminder

that the unique blessings we enjoy as Americans are largely

attributable to a document that has proven to be, notwithstanding some

flaws, probably the most successful governmental undertaking in the

history of civilized life on this planet.



	Constitutional principles and constitutional issues continually

bear on our day-to-day activities.  This very day, January 15,

1991--President Bush's deadline for the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from

Kuwait--provides an excellent example.  It is an event and a day of

obvious significance and concern to every American and to the world. 

Surrounding it on all sides is a constitutional issue.  I'll say more

about what that issue is in a moment.  But at the outset I want you to

understand that constitutional questions enter into a spectrum of our

interests ranging from global war to nude dancing to nonreturnable

soft-drink containers.



A Dramatic Story



	The two-hundred-year anniversary that we have been observing was a

fifteen-year period that began with the Declaration of Independence and

ended with the adoption of the Bill of Rights by the first Congress in

the summer of 1791.  The constitution-making portions of that decade

and a half lasted only four years and consisted, in my view, of three

basic phases.  The first was the famous Philadelphia Convention in the

summer of 1787.  That story has been told several times and in several

ways, but nowhere more interestingly nor more accurately than by our

own BYU film production A More Perfect Union. The convention was

conducted in secret and represented several struggles of epic

proportions among the delegates, ultimately resolved by a series of

compromises.  Someday someone should make another movie like A More

Perfect Union, telling the story of the second and third phases, which

were ratification and the adoption of the Bill of Rights. 

Chronologically, ratification and the Bill of Rights adoption occurred

in successive time periods, but they ended up being linked to each

other.  Their story is just as dramatic, and the process came just as

perilously close to failure as did the Constitutional Convention

itself.  Let me explain.



	The crucial time period for ratification lasted from late 1787

through the events of the summer of 1788.  Formally and technically,

the number of states required was nine, but everyone knew that if the

new republic was to have a chance, the Constitution would have to be

ratified by certain key states, including New York, Massachusetts, and

Virginia.  Very quickly, national leaders divided into two camps: the

Federalists who supported the new Constitution, and the

anti-Federalists who opposed it.  The anti-Federalists included such

luminaries as George Mason, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee of

Virginia; Samuel Adams and Eldridge Gerry of Massachusetts; and Luther

Martin of Maryland.  They were distressed over the fact that this

secret convention, authorized only to modify the Articles of

Confederation, had instead established an entirely new form of

government.  Worse yet, it was a national government--with some of the

very centralizing features and powers that the Articles of

Confederation just a few years before had been deliberately designed to

avoid.  Indeed, many felt that this new document would lead us back on

a path to monarchy. 



	The Federalists' efforts to secure ratification were led

principally by Madison and Hamilton, who, with some help from John Jay,

published under the pseudonym "Publius" a series of eighty-five essays

entitled "The Federalist." Those essays are today not only the most

authoritative sources for determining the original intent of the

Founding Fathers, they are also part of our national literary treasure

store.



	The anti-Federalists rather quickly focused their attack on the

lack of a "bill of rights." For both sides, the bill of rights issue

was more tactical than substantive.  All assumed that if the

anti-Federalists succeeded in sending the entire Constitution into a

second convention to consider including a bill of rights, a second

convention would not have the advantage of secrecy that the first had

enjoyed, and the proponents of a new constitution could therefore

probably not duplicate the series of compromises on which their work of

the summer 1787 had depended.  In short, a new convention would mean no

constitution at all, and both sides understood that the battle over a

bill of rights was really a battle over the Constitution itself.



	Once again, it was a compromise that carried the day, but this

time a procedural one.  Following the Massachusetts lead in early 1788,

the crucial state conventions ratified the Constitution as it stood,

but accompanied it with the addition of some proposed bill of rights

amendments that Congress could consider after ratification.  Given the

closeness of the votes in Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia, it is

quite clear that without this ratification-now-Bill-of-Rights-later

compromise, our Constitution would never have come into existence.  And

yet when the first Congress convened in April of 1789, most of its

members were inclined to consider virtually any matter of business

other than the Bill of Rights.  If not for the constant pressure of one

man, James Madison, then a member of the House of Representatives, the

first Congress might never have enacted a bill of rights. (Ironically,

Madison had been defeated for the Senate by Richard Henry Lee, who had

opposed the Constitution.) Therefore, in all three phases of our

constitution-making drafting, ratification, and adding the Bill of

Rights-Madison was the central figure.  He truly deserves his title,

the Father of our Constitution.



The Limitation of Government



	What, then, is this Constitution that Madison and Hamilton and

others labored so diligently and precariously to bring about, and whose

bicentennial we have been celebrating over the past four years? In the

most elementary sense, the answer is that it is a part of our American

body of laws, and laws are the rules by which we govern ourselves.  But

out of all the rules of conduct that rise to the level of law in our

society, the Constitution is different in several respects.  I will

mention just two, and they are interrelated.



	First, the Constitution is supreme over all other law.  That means

that in the event there is any inconsistency between the provisions of

the Constitution and law that stems from any other source, the other

law is invalid for that reason alone.  That is what we mean when we say

that laws are unconstitutional."



	The second distinction is one that is not often talked about but

is very important and is related to the first.  As compared to any

other kind of law-including statutory, regulatory, or judge-made common

law-constitutional law (at least by the formal processes specified by

the Constitution itself) is very difficult to make or change.  Consider

this: In two hundred years we have added only twenty-six amendments. 

The first ten, which include a large share of our most important

constitutional provisions, were enacted in just a little over two

years.  But since that time, of the literally thousands of

constitutional amendments that have been proposed, only sixteen--an

average of eight per century--have actually become part of our

constitutional law.  And of those sixteen, two have canceled each other

out, the majority have dealt with relatively unimportant matters, and

only one, the Fourteenth, has an importance comparable to some of the

provisions that were adopted between 1787 and 1791.



	The central feature of the American Constitution is that with only

one exception, its provisions are confined to limiting the powers of

government.  The single exception is the Thirteenth Amendment, which

prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude and therefore necessarily

governs relationships between private, nongovernmental people and

entities.  With that single exception, the Constitution leaves

untouched those vast bodies of other law that regulate the rights and

obligations that individuals, groups, and institutions owe to and enjoy

from each other.  I suspect that the great majority of Americans don't

know that.  It follows that when we speak of our constitutional rights,

we are necessarily speaking of rights that we enjoy vis-a-vis

government, either national, state, or local.  The Constitution is

silent with respect to rights that we might enjoy vis-a-vis our

employer, our neighbor, or any other nongovernmental person or entity

who infringes on our interests in any way other than the imposition of

slavery or involuntary servitude, neither of which has been a terribly

pressing issue over the past century and a quarter.



	The Constitution is, in short, a limitation on government.  It

accomplishes its governmental-authority-confining mission in two basic

ways, and, with the exception of the Thirteenth Amendment, every

provision of the Constitution, in my opinion, falls into either one or

the other of these two categories of limitations on governmental power.



	The first category is the obvious one.  The Constitution contains

some fairly obvious, though not always specific, prohibitions

concerning what government--federal, state, or local--can do to its

citizens.  Some of the most prominent are protections for the

criminally accused, such as the privilege against self-incrimination,

protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to

counsel, and jury trial.  The best known of the noncriminal protections

are contained in the First Amendment, most of whose guarantees pertain

to some form of free expression, and include freedom of speech and

press, freedom of assembly, and the free exercise of religion.

(Interestingly enough, the only nonexpression right contained in the

First Amendment is a structural provision, the so-called establishment

clause, which deals with relationships between governments and

religious organizations.) And although the original Constitution was

criticized by the anti-Federalists for its lack of a bill of rights, it

actually contained several important limitations on government designed

solely to protect individual rights, such as the prohibitions against

bills of attainder and ex post facto laws, the habeas corpus guarantee,

and the contracts clause.



	The other way that the Constitution limits governmental powers is

more subtle, not as well known, but equally important and equally

effective.  It consists of a combination of two separate structural

provisions.  They are structural provisions in that they protect the

individual against governmental power not by overtly prescribing what

government cannot do, but rather by creating separate governmental

units that compete for government power.  By spreading the powers of

government among several separate entities and by making each a

competitor with the others, there is a lesser likelihood that any of

those entities can ever acquire power in sufficient measure to become

oppressive.  The Constitution accomplishes this division of power along

two dimensions: one horizontal, and one vertical.



	First, it divides powers horizontally among three separate

branches of the federal government.  This breaking up of governmental

authority among separate branches of the federal government was, in a

very real sense, the first order of business for the 1787 Constitution

makers.  Thus, in Article I they created a legislative branch

(Congress) and gave it the power to make laws; Article II created an

executive branch (the president), charged with the responsibility "that

the laws be faithfully executed"; and then Article III created the

third branch (the federal courts), whose duty it is to interpret the

laws.



	The Constitution also divides power in a quite different

way--vertically--between the federal government on the one hand and the

various state governments on the other.  Moreover, it gives each of

these competitors a power feature that the other does not have.  That

is, the law-making authority of the states (a larger circle) is broader

because the powers of the federal government (a smaller, included

circle) are confined to those that the Constitution itself specifically

authorizes any of the three branches to exercise, or powers that can be

fairly implied by those specifically enumerated powers.  But within its

narrower sphere, federal law trumps state law whenever the two come

into conflict.  In summary, therefore, under this constitutional

vertical division of authority, which we call federalism, the federal

law is more potent, and within its confined sphere prevails when, as

very frequently happens, the two come into conflict, but the total

package of state powers is larger.



Genius Features



	All of this talk about structure and competition for power in

government may sound terribly boring to some of you, maybe even

irrelevant.  Let me tell you why I get so excited about it.  It is not

just my natural affinity for esoteric things.  I believe that these

interlocking structural features, separation of powers and federalism,

lie at the core of why our constitutional system of government has

survived and served us so well over two centuries.  Both are simple in

their basic precepts.  But in their actual operation they can only be

described as genius features.  Over the long run of our nation's

history, they have managed to maintain a balance of power both within

the federal government and also between our two systems of government

that has effectively protected our individual liberties in ways that

are more subtle, but in my view just as effective, as the better-known

guarantees contained in the Bill of Rights.



	And they do so in ways that affect all of us. just ask yourselves,

for example, what single issue have you been most concerned about over

the last several weeks? I would guess that for most of you, number one

on your worry list has been the possibility of war.  Did you know that

at the bottom of the tussle between Congress and the president over the

past several weeks, culminating in last weekend's congressional debate

and resolution, is a rock-solid separation of powers issue? Among the

powers that the Constitution splits up among different governmental

entities are those that pertain to our ability to make war.  In Iraq,

Saddam Hussein can call all the shots by himself.  But in this country,

it takes some cooperative effort between at least two governmental

competitors.  Iraq's system is more efficient, but ours is better

designed to assure against arbitrary and tyrannical government.  And

that's why I conclude that these structural features really amount to a

genius system.



	One of the most important features of the American Constitution,

both in theory and in practice, is the magnificent breadth of its most

important provisions-notably the commerce clause, most of the Bill of

Rights guarantees, and the Fourteenth Amendment's due process and equal

protection clauses.  The lack of specificity of these and other

provisions has almost certainly been essential to the ability of this

document drafted in 1787 to survive oxer 200 years of the largest and

most unanticipated change that any country at any time has ever

experienced.



	And yet there is another edge to this generality.  Someone has to

be vested with the final authority to determine what the Constitution

means when its provisions are applied to concrete practical facts, many

of which were totally unanticipated at the time of the Constitutional

Convention.  For example, how, if at all, is the authority of the

states to regulate the lengths and weights of trucks on interstate

highways precluded by Congress's constitutional authority "to regulate

commerce ... among the several states"? In 1787 few people were

thinking about interstate highways or trucks.  Similarly, the

Constitution guarantees against infringements on free speech.  What

does that guarantee do, if anything, to state laws providing recovery

for libel and slander? And what is speech? Any form of expression? Does

it include flag burning? If so, is there a difference between burning

flags and burning draft cards? Or sleeping in tents as a protest

against homelessness? And what about the recent controversy over the

refusal of the National Endowment for the Arts to give grants to

projects or works that it considers obscene? Does the Constitution

require that so long as NEA gives grants to anyone, it not exclude

those that it considers objectionable?



	You can read the Constitution very carefully and not find, even in

a footnote or an annotated version, any answer to any of those

questions.  Each of these is a form of expression, and yet none of them

uses words.  Speech or not? First Amendment protected or not? Different

people would give different answers to those questions.



	And even where the text is more specific, questions of

interpretation still remain.  For example, with respect to the issue

that is very much at the forefront of all of our minds today, how much

could President Bush have done in the Persian Gulf without a formal

congressional declaration? In this case, Congress acted, but in other

crucial instances, such as the Civil War, Korea, and Vietnam,

congressional action was either absent or less decisive.  The

Constitution states unequivocally, and quite specifically, that "the

Congress shall have power ... to declare war." Yet in language that is

equally unequivocal and equally precise, Article 11 states that "the

President shall be Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the

United States." Did Presidents Lincoln, Truman, Johnson, and Nixon act

unconstitutionally, or were they within their Article 11 powers?

 



	Nothing in the text of the Constitution, and nothing in its

history, provides the answer to those and many other practical

questions that arise every day.  But if our nation is to survive as a

functioning constitutional republic, someone has to say what these

broad, general provisions of the Constitution really mean.  Since the

issue is one of interpretation, common sense tells us that the

Constitution is among the laws that the courts interpret, and that

commonsense view is supported both by 187 years of actual practice and

also by the most authoritative piece of constitutional history on this

issue, Number 78 of the Federalist Papers, authored by Hamilton.



	There are some consequences of this judicial power to interpret

the Constitution that are a concern to many people, including your

speaker.  It means that five people-a majority of the Supreme

Court-have the power not only to interpret the Constitution, but also

effectively to amend it if they choose to do so, with little effective

power for Congress, the president, or the people to reverse what the

Court does in any particular case.



	As large and as real as that concern is, it needs to be tempered

by two facts.  The first is that it is fairly clear to me that this

power of judicial review--the authority of the courts to have the last

word on constitutionality-was intended by the 1787 framers, though they

did not explicitly say so. By combining the power of judicial review

(which, as Hamilton says, they probably did intend) with the very broad

language that the Founding Fathers used in the Constitution's most

important provisions, the expansive judicial power that comes from

judicial review was, in a sense, part of the "original intent" of the

1787 framers.



	Second, there is, over the long run, a responsiveness between the

will of the people and the content of our constitutional law.  This

comes about through the power of the president to appoint members of

the federal judiciary.  Indeed, as every recent president since

Eisenhower has explicitly observed, one of the most important acts of

any president-some have said the most important-is to appoint members

of the Supreme Court, whose average tenure has been several times that

of our presidents.



	Therefore, over the decades of your future careers as voting

Americans, just remember that when you vote for a president, you are

doing more than picking the person who will lead us in war and peace

and have access to Camp David and Air Force One.  You are also in

effect making a decision as to what kind of person you want on the

Supreme Court.  Our nation's history over the last half century

demonstrates this  fact. Particularly illustrative are the eight

Roosevelt appointments in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and Nixon's

four appointments between 1969 and 1972.  While both of these

presidents, and others, were probably disappointed in some of their

appointees, as a group, those appointed by Roosevelt and also Nixon

reflected the views of the president who appointed them, and presumably

the people who elected the president.  Most important of all, both the

Roosevelt and the Nixon appointees have had large effects on all of us

that will last for decades and, in many instances, forever.

 



The Constitution's Significance for Latter-day Saints



	The constitutional principles and features that we have discussed

thus far are relevant to every American citizen, and indeed to every

person who enjoys the benefits of our constitutional system of

government.  For those of us who are members of The Church of Jesus

Christ of Latter-day Saints, the study of the Constitution offers at

least three other pluses, and they are unique to us.



	The first is that the Restoration itself probably could not have

survived if 200 years ago the anti-Federalists had prevailed.  The

events of the Restoration all occurred in this country.  The message

that it brought back to the world was highly controversial and

provocative.  Even with such protections as separation of powers and

federalism and the explicit religion guarantees of the First Amendment,

our early survival was as miraculous as that of the Constitution

itself.  Without those protections, we likely would not have survived

at all.



	It is, at the least, a remarkable coincidence--and in my view, no

coincidence at all--that Joseph Smith was born less than fifteen years

after the Bill of Rights became part of the Constitution.  It's easy to

forget that.  The establishment of our Constitution by the hands of

wise men occurred in the eighteenth century, and the birth of Joseph

Smith and the First Vision in the nineteenth, but they actually took

place only a few years apart.  President Wilford Woodruff observed that

the United States was the only place on earth where the Lord could have

established his church and kingdom.  And in more recent times,

President David O. McKay in the dedicatory prayer for the Los Angeles

Temple expressed gratitude for the Constitution and for the fact that

it made the Restoration possible.  How important, then, has the

Constitution been for us? Without it, we probably would not have the

gospel.



	And this brings me to the second unique relationship between our

American Constitution and our religion.  We know that in fact the

events whose two-hundredth birthday we observe did not come about just

by chance.  The descriptive phrase most commonly used by many members

of the Church is that our Constitution was "divinely inspired."

Unfortunately, some Church members have deduced from that general,

nonscriptural description more than the scriptures or the Constitution

or common sense will sustain.



	That is, from the general label "divinely inspired," some assume

that the Constitution is tantamount to scripture, and therefore perfect

in every respect, reflecting in every provision and every sentence the

will of our Heavenly Father, just as is true of the Book of Mormon or

the Doctrine and Covenants.  That view cannot withstand analysis.  Our

Constitution has some provisions that are not only not divine, they are

positively repulsive.  The classic example is contained in Article V,

which guaranteed as a matter of constitutional right that the slave

trade would continue through at least the year 1808.  There are other

provisions that are not as offensive as the slavery guarantee, but they

were quite clearly bad policy, and certainly were not divinely inspired

in the same sense as are the scriptures.  Moreover, regarding the

Constitution as tantamount to scripture is difficult to square with the

fact that our republic has functioned very well, probably even better,

after at least one of its original provisions (requiring United States

senators to be elected by their respective state legislatures rather

than by the people at large) was amended out of existence by the

Seventeenth Amendment.



	In my own view, this whole issue is resolved simply by examining

what the scriptures say, rather than resorting to the generality

"divinely inspired," which you will not find anywhere in the standard

works.  Probably the most helpful statement is contained in section

101, verse 80 of the Doctrine and Covenants: "And for this purpose have

I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men

whom I raised up unto this very purpose." I submit that this scripture

makes it very clear that our Heavenly Father's involvement in the

bringing forth of our Constitution was more an involvement in process

than in end result.  As President Benson has stated, "It is my firm

belief that the God of Heaven raised up the Founding Fathers and

inspired them to establish the Constitution of this land." His focus,

and the focus of the Doctrine and Covenants, frees us of the burden of

trying to equate the Constitution with scripture and, therefore, to

justify every part.  And a focus on process reaffirms the fact that the

Constitution did not just come about by chance.  Our Heavenly Father

did play an active and essential role.  That role was not the

revelation to a prophet of infallible truth, perfect and reliable in

every aspect.  Rather, what the Lord did was to raise up at just the

right time and in just the right combination people who could and

predictably would produce a document that is, on balance, the most

remarkable ever struck by human hands.  Interestingly enough, James

Madison himself in Number 37 of the Federalist Papers also expressed

the view that "it is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to

perceive in it [referring to the Constitution] a finger of that

Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our

relief in the critical state of the Revolution." Statements similar to

that of Madison can be found in the writings of others of the Founding

Fathers.



	A final area of constitutional interest unique to Latter-day

Saints finds its source in the well-known "hanging by a thread"

statements by the Prophet Joseph Smith.  Similar statements have been

reiterated by no fewer than six of his successors, including the

current prophet.  In a forthcoming book to be published by the

Religious Studies Center, Professor Donald Cannon lists over forty

instances in which these seven presidents have either used the "thread"

metaphor or something like it.  But in none of those quotations cited

by Professor Cannon has any Church leader ever been very specific as to

the metaphor's meaning.



	Unfortunately, some members of the Church have been all too ready

to offer their own explanations.  The only thing consistent about these

explanations is that in each instance, it was the Church member's own

unresolved, often very private, grievance that supplied evidence that

the thread was beginning to fray, sometimes beyond repair.  Among some

people, any problem from a tax increase to a failure to collect the

garbage on time to a boundary dispute with one's neighbor is likely to

call forth the observation that it is certainly easy to see how the

Constitution is hanging by a thread.  A companion assertion is that the

election or appointment of certain persons, often the person making the

assertion, to designated positions provides the key to preventing the

demise of our constitutional system.



	In my view, this is another instance in which going beyond what

our leaders have said can be misleading at best, and potentially

fraught with mischief.  Even though we have not been given the exact

meaning of the prophets' statements about the Constitution hanging by a

thread, the scriptures do define the conditions on which freedom in the

land of America ultimately depends.  I am satisfied that whatever else

may eventually hang in the constitutional balance, this much is clear:

The continuation of the blessings of liberty depends finally on our

spiritual righteousness.  As the Lord told the Jaredites in the Book of

Ether, this is a "land of promise." And "whatsoever nation shall

possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, . . . if

they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ." If the

people fail to keep this covenant, they "shall be swept off when the

fulness of his wrath shall come upon them.  And the fulness of his

wrath cometh upon them when they are ripened in iniquity" (Ether

2:9-12).



	I hope that after this morning's discussion you will have a better

understanding not only of what the Constitution is and how it works,

but also of what it does not do. As Paul Martin Wolff, a prominent

Washington, D.C., lawyer, has observed:



	The Constitution has too often been misused for personal gain. 

Individual desires have been palmed off as scholarship.  Politicians

have pandered to the public by compounding misunderstandings of Supreme

Court decisions, not correcting them.  Constitutional pronouncements

appear everywhere, from bumper stickers to talk shows.  Too many people

appear in  classrooms, pulpits, campaign platforms, and mass

circulation magazines, telling us not what they believe the

Constitution means, but what they insist it says, giving every

appearance that they are the sole heirs of James Madison's wisdom.

[Paul Martin Wolff, Legal Times of Washington, November 9, 1981]



	Necessarily, today's discussion has been very summary in its

content.  I cannot hope to give you in thirty-five minutes a

constitutional law course that either in our political science or our

law school curriculum would occupy a full year, or that for more

serious students of this fascinating subject can consume a lifetime and

still leave many questions unanswered.  What I hope we have been able

to accomplish is two things.  The first is to give you a basic

understanding of what the Constitution is and is not, how it operates,

and its particular significance for you.  Second, I hope that you now

have an interest in learning more as an enduring, continuing part of

your overall learning processes.  The Lord's caution about the

relationship between our righteousness and our liberties has been

reiterated over the centuries from Jaredite days to Nephite days to our

own.  Scriptures ancient and modern tell us that there is something we

can do to contribute to the cause of freedom in this land governed by a

constitution whose bicentennial we celebrate--a constitution

established by the hands of wise men raised up by God for that very

purpose.  That each of us may make that contribution through the lives

we lead, by keeping our Heavenly Father's commandments, and striving to

be more like his Son is my prayer, in the name of his Son, Jesus

Christ.  Amen.



                        LIKENING THE SCRIPTURES

                                UNTO US

                            Dean L. Larsen



     Dean L. Larsen is a member of the Presidency of the Seventy of The

     Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This fireside

     address was given on 3 February 1991 in the Marriott Center.



	I have been advised that this fireside concludes a series of

activities that have focused attention on the Book of Mormon, with

particular emphasis on the book of Alma.  In many ways Alma could

qualify as an independent scripture.  It contains almost twice as many

chapters as any other book in the Book of Mormon.  Its recounting of

the missionary labors of the sons of Mosiah among the Lamanites is one

of the most remarkable missionary stories of all time.  Alma's great

treatise on faith and the power of God's word in chapter 32 is a

classic.  Amulek's explanation of the Atonement in chapter 34 is as

straightforward and clear as any treatment of this subject to be found

in the scriptures.  Alma's admonitions to his son Corianton merit the

closest study, particularly his exposition on mercy, justice, and

judgment in chapter 42.  And there is so much more.



	As I have studied the Book of Mormon, I have become convinced

that, in addition to its being another powerful witness for Jesus

Christ and his gospel plan, it has unusual value for us by virtue of

what we can learn from the experiences of the people whose record it

is.  In some respects, our review of the historical events in the book

permits us to see a reflection of ourselves.  As we compare

circumstances and conditions in our own time with those we see in

relevant segments of the Book of Mormon history, we may be able to

predict with some degree of accuracy the consequences of human behavior

in our day.  We can also gain vital insight into how we may continue to

merit the Lord's blessings and thus avoid the calamities that so often

befell these ancient people.  The book of Alma is as useful in this

kind of review as any of the scriptures we possess.  With your

indulgence this evening, I am going to look beyond the significant

doctrinal teachings that make Alma such a rich treasury and invite you

to look with me at the lives of the people from this part of the record

and compare them with conditions and events in our present day.  In

doing so, I intend to draw upon other relevant sources, some from the

Book of Mormon, and some from other documents that may help us to see

ourselves in the continuing historic panorama of God's dealings with

his earthly children.



"And Thus They Did Dwindle in Unbelief"



	As the book of Mosiah concludes, the people of Nephi have been

established under a government of elected judges.  Alma, the son of

Alma, has been named as the "first and chief judge." He is also the

presiding officer of the Church.



	It is a good time.  The great love felt by the people for King

Mosiah has laid a strong foundation for the new government.  The Church

is well established, and the people "rejoiced because of the liberty

which had been granted unto them" (Mosiah 29:39).



	Challenges soon confront the leaders in this new system.  Alma is

faced with a seditious movement against the government as well as

against the Church.  Gideon, one of the most loved and respected of the

senior citizens, is murdered.  Nehor, who has instigated the

insurrection, and who is personally guilty of Gideon's murder, is

summarily tried and executed for his crime.  But his apostate influence

has taken root among the people, for, as the record says, "there were

many who loved the vain things of the world," and "the hearts of many

were hardened" (Alma 1: 16, 24).



	By the time five years have passed, the Nephite nation is torn by

civil war, and there are many defections from the Church.  In the midst

of these difficulties, the Nephites are invaded by Lamanite armies.  In

the ensuing battles, so many Nephites are slain that they are not

numbered because of the greatness of their number (see Alma 3:1).  It

is a time of great remorse among the Nephites.



	And so great were their afflictions that every soul had cause to

mourn; and they believed that it was the judgments of God sent upon

them because of their wickedness and their abominations; therefore they

were awakened to a remembrance of their duty.

	And they began to establish the church more fully; yea, and many

were baptized in the waters of Sidon and were joined to the church of

God.  [Alma 4:3-4]



	In this resurgence of faith the Nephites prosper again.  Peace

returns.  Remarkably, it does not last for long.  Within a period of

three years, defection and apostasy begin to manifest themselves within

the Church.



	And it came to pass in the eighth year of the reign of the judges,

that the people of the church began to wax proud, because of their

exceeding riches, and their fine silks, and their fine-twined linen,

and because of their many flocks and herds, and their gold and their

silver, and all manner of precious things, which they had obtained by

their industry; and in all these things were they lifted up in the

pride of their eyes. [Alma 4:6]



	The dissension spreads rapidly.  Alma, perplexed by the drift of

his people toward another tragedy, resigns from his position as chief

judge and turns his full energy and attention to the collapsing church.



	And this he did that he himself might go forth among his people,

or among the people of Nephi, that he might preach the word of God unto

them, to stir them up in remembrance of their duty, and that he might

pull down, by the word of God, all the pride and craftiness and all the

contentions which were among his people, seeing no way that he might

reclaim them save it were in bearing down in pure testimony against

them. [Alma 4:19]



	Alma then goes to the major cities of the land to accomplish his

purpose--to Zarahemla, Gideon, Melek, Ammonihah, Sidom, among the

Zoramites, and eventually to Jershon.  Much of Alma's record is

composed of the great doctrinal discourses preached by Alma and his

companions in their efforts to reclaim this people.  It is a labor of

many years and demands the utmost of Alma's faith and perseverance.



	In the course of these events, we can observe the manner in which

the Lord tests and tries his people.  We note, as well, the afflictions

that he permits them to bring upon themselves in order to humble them

and keep them from falling completely away from the course he has

marked out for them.  The warfare and suffering described in the latter

chapters of Alma are grim reminders of the tragedies that people can

bring upon themselves when they drift away from the Lord's standard.



	In each dispensation of the gospel prior to the one in which we

live, there has come a time when the people of God have succumbed to

the worldly influences that have encompassed them.  Periods of

spiritual darkness have followed as the earth's inhabitants have turned

themselves away from God and have suffered the consequences of their

folly.  The saddest recorded accounts in the scriptural and historical

records are those of once-favored people who drift into apostasy.



	Following the Savior's visit to the Nephites and Lamanites here in

the Americas, the people who responded to his ministry enjoyed a period

of unprecedented prosperity and happiness.  In 4 Nephi we find this

description of them:



	And the Lord did prosper them exceedingly in the land; yea,

insomuch that they did build cities again where there had been cities

burned. . . 

	And . . . the people of Nephi did wax strong, and did multiply

exceedingly fast, and became an exceedingly fair and delightsome

people. . . 

	And it came to pass that there was no contention among all the

people, in all the land; . . .

	And there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor

whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness;

and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who

had been created by the hand of God.  [4 Nephi 1:7, 10, 13, 16]

	For almost 200 years the people lived in these favored

circumstances.  Then, almost inconceivably, they left the pattern of

life that had brought them such great blessings.



	Mormon's commentary on the spiritual decline of this people is

worthy of careful, thoughtful review:



	And now I, Mormon, would that ye should know that the people had

multiplied, insomuch that they were spread upon all the face of the

land, and that they had become exceedingly rich, because of their

prosperity in Christ.

 

	And now, . . . there began to be among them those who were lifted

up in pride. . .

	And from that time forth they did have their goods and their

substance no more common among them.

	And they began to be divided into classes. . . .

	And . . . there were many . . . which professed to know the

Christ, and yet they did deny the more parts of his gospel. . . .

	. . .the people did harden their hearts, for they were led . . .

to do all manner of iniquity. . . .And thus they did dwindle in

unbelief and wickedness, from year to year. [4 Nephi 1:23-27, 34]



	But wickedness did prevail upon the face of the whole land,

insomuch that the Lord did take away his beloved disciples, and the

work of miracles and of healing did cease because of the iniquity of

the people.

	And there were no gifts from the Lord, and the Holy Ghost did not

come upon any, because of their wickedness and unbelief. . . .

	. . . for behold they had wilfully rebelled against their God.

[Mormon 1:13-16]



Similar Challenges in Our Time



	We have been assured that in this last dispensation of the fulness

of times there will be no universal apostasy.  When the Lord appears

again in his glory, he will find a people who will have remained

faithful and who will be ready to receive him and join with him in the

completion of his work.



	But the fact that there will not be a complete apostasy in this

last dispensation does not mean all who have received the gospel and

become members of the Church will remain faithful.  Prophetic

references to our own day, in fact, seem to indicate that there will be

many who have known the truth and have tasted of the Lord's goodness

who will then allow themselves to be tempted away from the course the

Lord has marked out for them.



	In the October general conference of 1965, Elder Harold B. Lee

spoke of the test that would come, and in his remarks he cited the

words of President Heber C. Kimball, who said:



	We think we are secure here in the chambers of the everlasting

hills . . . , but I want to say to yon, . . . the time is coming when

we will be mixed up in these now peaceful valleys to that extent that

it will be difficult to tell the face of a Saint from the face of an

enemy to the people of God.  Then, brethren, look out for the great

sieve, for there will be a great sifting time, and many will fall; for

I say unto you there is a test, a TEST, a TEST coming, and who will be

able to stand? [Orson E Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball (Salt Lake

City: Bookcraft, 1967), p. 446]



	In Lehi's vision of the tree of life, he describes those who would

be tempted away from the path of eternal happiness, even after they

have followed the rod of iron to the tree and tasted of its fruit. 

This is Lehi's description of what he saw:



	And it came to pass that there arose a mist of darkness; yea, even

an exceedingly great mist of darkness, insomuch that they who had

commenced in the path did lose their way, that they wandered off and

were lost.

	And it came to pass that I beheld others pressing forward, and

they came forth and caught hold of the end of the rod of iron; and they

did press forward through the mist of darkness, clinging to the rod of

iron, even until they did come forth and partake of the fruit of the

tree.

	And after they had partaken of the fruit of the tree they did cast

their eyes about as if they were ashamed.

	And I also cast my eyes round about, and beheld, on the other side

of the river of water, a great and spacious building; and it stood as

it were in the air, high above the earth.

	And it was filled with people, both old and young, both male and

female; and their manner of dress was exceedingly fine; and they were

in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers towards those who

had come at and were partaking of the fruit.

	And after they had tasted of the fruit they were ashamed, because

of those who were scoffing at them; and they fell away into forbidden

paths and were lost. [1 Nephi 8:23-28]



	Nephi later declared, "And it came to pass that I saw and bear

record, that the great and spacious building was the pride of the

world" (I Nephi 11:36).



	In reference to the calamities that will come upon the disobedient

in the last days, the Lord revealed to Joseph Smith:



	Nevertheless, Zion shall escape if she observe to do all things

whatsoever I have commanded her.

	But if she observe not to do whatsoever I have commanded her, I

will visit her according to all her works, with sore affliction, with

pestilence, with plague, with sword, with vengeance, with devouring

fire.  [D&C 97:25-26]



	Behold, vengeance cometh speedily upon the inhabitants of the

earth, a day of wrath, a day of burning, a day of desolation, of

weeping, of mourning, and of lamentation; and as a whirlwind it shall

come upon all the face of the earth, saith the Lord.

	And upon my house shall it begin, and from my house shall it go

forth, saith the Lord;

	First among those among you, saith the Lord, who have professed to

know my name and have not known me, and have blasphemed against me in

the midst of my house, saith the Lord. [D&C 112:24-26]



	Behold, I tell you these things, even as I also told the people of

the destruction of Jerusalem; and my word shall be verified at this

time as it hath hitherto been verified. [D&C 5:20]

	With these direful warnings and predictions the Lord combines

remarkable promises to those who will remain faithful and who will not

yield to the temptations the world offers.  But these are conditional

promises.  The Lord will not be mocked in these last days by those who

make covenants of obedience and then violate them with a sense of

impunity or with the deceitful intent of one day repenting and coming

back into line after purposeful excursions into forbidden paths.



	Nephi was allowed to see our time in vision, and he knew of the

efforts the adversary would make to delude and confuse the members of

the Church as well as others of God's children.  Nephi said:



	For behold, at that day shall he rage in the hearts of the

children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good.

	And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal

security, that they will say:  All is well in Zion; yea, Zion

prospereth, all is well--and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and

leadeth them away carefully down to hell. [2 Nephi 28:20-21]



	We live in a time of rapid Church growth.  Large numbers are being

baptized throughout the world.  Many countries that have not been

accessible to the missionary effort are now opening their doors.  In

many respects Zion is prospering, and things seem to be going well.



	In the midst of this apparent general prosperity of the Church, it

is well for us to look carefully and honestly into our own lives to see

if some of the evidences of spiritual infirmity are beginning to

reappear, particularly in light of the warnings the Lord has given to

us.



Maintaining Centers of Spiritual Strength



	Historically, the drifting away from the course of life marked out

by the Lord has occurred as individuals begin to make compromises with

the Lord's standard.  This is particularly true when the transgression

is willful and no repentance occurs.  Remember Mormon's description of

those who turned away from the true path in his day.  They did not sin

in ignorance.  They willfully rebelled against God.  It did not occur

as a universal movement.  It began as individual members of the Church

knowingly began to make compromises with the Lord's standard.  They

sought justification for their diversions in the knowledge that others

were compromising as well.  Those who willfully sin soon seek to

establish a standard of their own with which they can feel more

comfortable and which justifies their misconduct.  They also seek the

association of those who are willing to drift with them along this path

of self-delusion.



	As the number of drifting individuals increases, their influence

becomes more powerful.  It might be described as the "great and

spacious building syndrome." The drifting is the more dangerous when

its adherents continue to overtly identify with and participate with

the group that conforms to the Lord's way.  Values and standards that

were once clear become clouded and uncertain.  The norm of behavior

begins to reflect this beclouding of true principles.  Conduct that

would once have caused revulsion and alarm now becomes somewhat

commonplace.



	Alma was faced with this challenge as he began his efforts to

reestablish the order of the Church among his people.  To them he said:



	All you that are desirous to follow the voice of the good

shepherd, come ye out from the wicked, and be ye separate, and touch

not their unclean things; and behold, their names shall be blotted out,

that the names of the wicked shall not be numbered among the names of

the righteous. . . .

	For what shepherd is there among you having many sheep doth not

watch over them, that the wolves enter not and devour his flock?  And

behold, if a wolf enter his flock doth he not drive him out?  Yea, and

at the last, if he can, he will destroy him.

	And now I say unto you that the good shepherd doth call after you;

. . . and he commandeth you that ye suffer no ravenous wolf to enter

among you, that ye may not be destroyed. [Alma 5:57, 59-60]



	Alma's father, you will recall, had been faced with this problem

in the days of King Mosiah.  He consulted with the king, and it was

determined that the matter should be dealt with within the Church. 

Alma, therefore, went to the Lord to learn what should be done.  The

Lord's response is of great significance.



	Therefore I say unto you, Go and whosoever transgresseth against

me, him shall ye judge according to the sins which he has committed;

and if he confess his sins before thee and me, and repenteth in the

sincerity of his heart, him shall ye forgive, and I will forgive him

also.

	Now I say unto you, Go; and whosoever will not repent of his sins

the same shall not be numbered among my people; and this shall be

observed from this time forward.  [Mosiah 26:29, 321



	Zeezrom's story in the book of Alma is an excellent example of the

effectiveness of repentance.  Zeezrom, who once taunted and defied

Alma, made a dramatic change in his life and became one of the

stalwarts in the effort to strengthen the Church and reconvert his

people.  He was one of the few who became companions with Alma in his

missionary labors, obviously deserving of the complete trust and

confidence of his priesthood leader.



	The safe course to follow is to adhere strictly to the standards

set by the Lord, without compromise.  Those who do so give support to

one another in righteousness and faith.  They have compassion for the

sinner, but an intolerance for sin.  They deal with the unrepentant

sinner in such a way that he cannot persist in working his evil,

insidious influence among them.



	Such was the case with the people of Enoch.  Time will not permit

a review of the circumstances in Enoch's day, but a careful study of

that episode may give some insight into the manner in which the Lord

will preserve a righteous people in our time in a world that is

ripening in iniquity as it was before the flood.



	Within the framework of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Savior has

provided a refuge from the evils of the world.  Wherever a congregation

or community of Saints is found, there should be the sustaining

influence of the gospel and the assurance that those who identify

themselves as Saints are applying themselves to gospel principles.



	As in the days of Enoch, the Lord makes promises to the faithful

of this dispensation who will maintain such centers of spiritual

strength.



	And the glory of the Lord shall be there, and the terror of the

Lord also shall be there, insomuch that the wicked will not come unto

it, and it shall be called Zion.

	And it shall come to pass among the wicked, that every man that

will not take his sword against his neighbor must needs flee unto Zion

for safety.

	And there shall be gathered unto it out of every nation under

heaven. [D&C 45:67-69]



	And the nations of the earth shall honor her, and shall say:

Surely Zion ... cannot fall, neither be moved out of her place, for God

is there, and the hand of the Lord is there;

	And he hath sworn by the power of his might to be her salvation

and her high tower.

	Therefore, verily, thus saith the Lord, let Zion rejoice, for this

is Zion--the pure in heart. [D&C 97:19-21]



	In conforming to the instruction given by the Lord to Alma,

leaders have an obligation to exercise the judicial processes essential

to preserving a refining gospel environment, free from the corrupting

influences that otherwise intrude within the group and threaten its

spiritual base.



	In establishing the code of honor here at Brigham Young

University, Church leaders have attempted to foster an institution of

higher learning that can offer to those who come here as faculty or

students the assurance of a place where academic studies can be pursued

in a gospel environment uncontaminated by the influences that are

destructive to faith and spiritual well-being.



	All who enroll here at BYU make a pledge to which they affix their

signatures as an affidavit that they will abide by the code of honor or

be subject to dismissal.



	You will know, individually, whether or not you have integrity to

that pledge.  I think you will have some sense, collectively, as to

whether this code of honor is being upheld by the student body of BYU. 

May I give it as my strong personal conviction that to the degree you,

individually, violate this code, you invite into this campus community

a spirit of dissent that will inevitably have its effect upon you as

well as upon this institution.



	May I express profound admiration and gratitude to those of you

who retain your commitment to this code of honor as well as to the

principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Your integrity will not go

unnoticed by a just and loving Father in Heaven.  You represent a moral

strength that is greatly needed today.  You continue to contribute to

the perpetuation of a condition here on this campus that will bless

many lives.



	It should not surprise us, in light of the counsel we have been

given, that we occasionally observe some of the things Alma saw among

the members of the Church for whom he had concern and to whom he made

this appeal:



	Behold, I say unto you, that the good shepherd doth call you; yea,

and in his own name he doth call you, which is the name of Christ; and

if ye will not hearken unto the voice of the good shepherd, to the name

by which ye are called, behold, ye are not the sheep of the good

shepherd.

	And now if ye are not the sheep of the good shepherd, of what fold

are ye? . . .

	For I say unto you that whatsoever is good cometh from God, and

whatsoever is evil cometh from the devil. [Alma 5:38-40]



	And now, my brethren, I would that ye should hear me, for I speak

in the energy of my soul; for behold, I have spoken unto you plainly

that ye cannot err.  [Alma 5:43]



	At the conclusion of Enos' record in the Book of Mormon, he speaks

of the struggle that was necessary to keep the people of his day from

failing into disobedience and despair.  He says:



	And there was nothing save it was exceeding harshness, preaching

and prophesying of wars, and contentions, and destructions, and

continually reminding them of death, and the duration of eternity, and

the judgments and the power of God, and all these things--stirring them

up continually to keep them in the fear of the Lord.  I say there was

nothing short of these things, and exceedingly great plainness of

speech, would keep them from going down speedily to destruction. [Enos

1:23]



	I do not believe conditions among the members of the Church today

are as severe as they were in Enos' time.  However, I believe it is a

time for great plainness in speech.  Against the backdrop of conditions

in Alma's day and the prophesies the Lord has given pertaining to our

own time, I have tried to speak to you in plainness and forthrightness

about the conditions in which we live and the reasons for feeling some

concern about whether we are fully qualifying for the blessings the

Lord has promised.  I have hoped to confirm two things with you that

the Lord has made clear in his revelations.  One is that, while

individuals may fail to withstand the tests, the Lord will not permit

apostate influences to engulf his Church in this dispensation.  This

may require a purging from time to time in a manner that he has

described in unmistakable terms.  Such purging, if it is required in

our day, will be as painful and devastating as any experienced by God's

children at anytime on the earth.  The suffering of the disobedient in

the time of Alma gives some idea of the terrible circumstances that a

wayward people can bring upon themselves.



	The second thing I wish to confirm with you is that if we will be

faithful to the gospel plan of life, if we will keep the commandments

of God without compromise, without attempting to willfully,

purposefully cheat against that which we know to be right and pure and

good, we will have the preserving, protecting power of the Lord to be

with us, regardless of the course the world may take and its inevitable

consequences.



	We have a solemn obligation to the Lord, to ourselves, to our

posterity, and to the many good people in the world who are looking for

the right way to preserve a community of Saints who the Lord can bless

and who can serve as a beacon and a sanctuary to all who love the Lord

and seek to do his will.  May we be wise enough and honest enough with

ourselves to avoid the tempting of the adversary, who desires to cheat

our souls and lead us carefully down to his depths of despair and

misery.  May we be fervent enough in our faith and love of the Lord and

his work that we will be more than passive camp followers in our Church

membership.  May we be assertive and aggressive in standing for all

that is right and pure and good, I pray humbly in the name of Jesus

Christ.  Amen.



                           "I SAY UNTO YOU,

                                BE ONE"

                            Boyd K. Packer



     Boyd K. Packer is a member of the Council of The Twelve Apostles

     of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This

     devotional address was delivered on 12 February 1991 in the

     Marriott Center.



	As a mission president, I taught the missionaries to ask a few

questions about the town in which they were to labor.  Where did the

town get its name? When was it settled and why? "Then," I told them,

"you will know more about the town than even those who have lived there

all of their lives." Most people do not know the very simple and,

ofttimes, fascinating things about the community in which they live.



	You come to Brigham Young University from all over the world.  It

is my purpose to tell you things about this great community of learning

that you do not know.  I will tell you things about the past: why it is

unique and why and how this university was founded; something about the

present: how it is governed; and something of the future: what we must

do if we are to keep faith with those who founded it.  Most of what I

tell you, you will not find written in books.



Church Education in the Early Years



	From the beginning, the Church has fostered both spiritual and

secular learning, for that is in the revelations.  The Lord revealed

that "the glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and

truth.  Light and truth forsake that evil one. [Ye are commanded] to

bring up your children in light and truth" (D&C 93:36-37, 40).  Another

revelation tells us that "whatever principle of intelligence we attain

unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection" (D&C

130:18).  There are other scriptures that emphasize the importance of

both religions and secular learning.  One of them includes a promise:



	Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be

instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the

law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God,

that are expedient for you to understand. [D&C 88:78]



	As the early Saints moved to Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, they

established elementary and secondary schools in each settlement. 

Schools of the Prophets were organized for adult leaders in Kirtland,

Ohio, in 1833, and other such schools were organized even after the

settlement here in the West.  I know they had a School of the Prophets

in Brigham City, for instance.  In 1840, a university was established

in Nauvoo.



	During the trek to the Rocky Mountains, elementary classes were

conducted in the camps.  In the fall of 1847, within three months of

arriving in the valley, the first schools were organized.  Three years

later the University of Deseret was founded; it later became the

University of Utah.  The deeding of this university to the state

foreshadowed a policy to turn Church-related schools to the civil

government as soon as public schools were available to our members.



	Beginning in 1875, the Church established academies in the United

States, Canada, and Mexico.  They were to provide secondary secular and

religious education.  By 1907, the Church was operating thirty-five

academies.  The academies included elements of what we now have in

junior colleges.  For example, President Harold B. Lee graduated from

the Oneida Stake Academy in Idaho and was appointed principal of an

elementary school.  He was eighteen years old at the time.  President

Benson graduated from that same academy.



	With the establishment of free public high schools, attendance at

the academies declined.  Some were closed; others became

Church-sponsored junior colleges.  By 1931, only Juarez Academy in

Mexico remained.  In time, except for Ricks College, the junior

colleges were all transferred to the states.  Weber State University

began as the Weber Academy.  President David O. McKay was principal at

the time of his call to the Twelve.  Brigham Young Academy became

Brigham Young University.



	Incidentally, there was a Brigham Young College established in

1877 in Logan.  It was replaced by a land-grant college, now Utah State

University.



	And in 1891 the Church announced the establishment of the Young

University in Salt Lake City headed by Dr. James E. Talmage.  Buildings

were under construction and equipment had been purchased when the Panic

of 1893 occurred.  Church leaders set aside those plans in favor of

supporting the University of Utah, which was sinking under the

depression, and Dr. Talmage was appointed president of that university

(John R. Talmage, The Talmage Story [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1972],

pp. 119-23).



	When they moved from academies to public secondary schools, our

youth missed religious instruction.  In 1912, the Church opened the

first released-time seminary adjacent to Granite High School in Salt

Lake City.  The following year Able S. Rich, who was a teacher in

agriculture at the time, was hired to open the second seminary in

Brigham City.  Brother Rich was still there as principal when I began

to teach there forty years ago.



	Institutes of religion were established at public colleges

beginning in 1926 at the University of Idaho.  I have known personally

most of those who pioneered religious education in the Church.



	There is another chapter.  In fairly recent times, elementary and

secondary schools were established many places in the world where

schools were not available to our members.  When public education

became available, more than a hundred schools--including a university,

junior colleges, academies, secondary and elementary schools--were

transferred to state governments or were closed.



	In order to coordinate the programs and growth of Church schools,

a General Church Board of Education was organized in 1888, consisting

of selected local Church leaders-stake presidents, for instance.  Karl

G. Maeser was named the first superintendent of Church schools, a

position that later became the commissioner of Church education.



Working As One



	In recent years, the board of education of the Church and the

board of trustees for Church colleges and universities has been the

First Presidency, six members of the Quorum of the Twelve, a member of

the Presiding Bishopric, and the presidents of the Relief Society and

the Young Women of the Church.



	I can best tell you how you are governed today, how the board of

trustees functions, by explaining the principles and procedures we

follow in the meetings of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve

Apostles.  These procedures protect the work from the individual

weaknesses apparent in all of us.



	When a matter comes before the First Presidency and the Quorum of

the Twelve Apostles in a temple meeting, one thing that is determined

very quickly is whether it is of serious consequence or not.  One or

another of us will see in an apparently innocent proposal issues of

great and lasting consequence.



	It is clear from the revelations that the decisions of the

presiding quorums "must be by the unanimous voice of the same....

Unless this is the case, their decisions are not entitled to the same

blessings" (D&C 107:27, 29).  In order to ensure that to be the case,

matters of consequence are seldom decided in the meeting where they are

proposed.  And, if the proposal is a part of a larger issue, sufficient

time is taken to "bring us all along" so that it is clear that each of

us has either a clear understanding of the issue or, as is often the

case, has a very clear feeling about it.



	The Doctrine and Covenants instructs us:



	Let not all be spokesmen at once; but let one speak at a time and

let all listen unto his sayings, that when all have spoken that all may

be edified of all, and that every man may have an equal privilege. [D&C

88:122]



	It would be unthinkable to deliberately present an issue in such a

way that approval depended upon how it was maneuvered through channels,

who was presenting it, or who was present or absent when it was

presented.



	Often one or more of us is away during regular meetings.  We all

know that the work must proceed and will accept the judgment of our

brethren.  However, if a matter has been studied by one of the Quorum

in more detail than by the others or he is more familiar with it either

by assignment, experience, or personal interest, the matter is very

often delayed until he can be in on the discussion.



	And, always, if one of us cannot understand an issue or feels

unsettled about it, it is held over for future discussion.



	I remember occasions when a delegation was sent to the hospital to

discuss with a member of the Council who was ill some urgent matter

that could not be delayed but which needed that "unanimous consent."

There are occasions, as well, when one of us will leave the meeting

temporarily to call one of our number who is abroad to get his feelings

on a matter under discussion.



	There is a rule we follow: A matter is not settled until there is

a minute entry to evidence that all of the Brethren in council

assembled (not just one of us, not just a committee) have come to a

unity of feeling.  Approval of a matter in principle is not considered

authority to act until a minute entry records the action taken--usually

when the minutes are approved in the next meeting.



	Sometimes an afterthought keeps one of us restless over a

decision.  That is never dismissed lightly.  It cannot be assumed that

that restless spirit is not in fact the Spirit of Revelation.



	That is how we function--in council assembled.  That provides

safety for the Church and a high comfort level for each of us who is

personally accountable.  Under the plan, men of very ordinary capacity

may be guided through counsel and inspiration to accomplish

extraordinary things.



	Even with the best of intentions, it does not always work the way

it should.  Human nature may express itself on occasion, but not to the

permanent injury of the work.  I have a deep, even a sacred, regard for

councils; inspiration is evident in them.  If ever another course has

been followed, trouble has followed as surely as night follows day.



	When I was first called as a General Authority, I was serving as

an assistant administrator of seminaries and institutes and as a member

of the administrative council of BYU.  They were kind enough to have a

dinner to see me off with Elder Marion G. Romney, representing the

board of education, as the speaker.



	President William E. Berrett made a very brief response in which

he said that Brother Tuttle (who by then was one of the Seventy) and I

had something of a motto.  It was "Follow the Brethren." Brother Romney

responded with some humor that he was glad for that motto since I

already had been given an assignment to assist him.  "Now I know that

Brother Packer will do everything I tell him to do."



	I was asked to respond.  I did not know Brother Romney very well

at that time or I should not have said what I did.  Nevertheless, I

lived to learn that the very intimate relationship I had with him in

years to come began that night when I said, "Brother Romney

misunderstood! Our motto was 'Follow the Brethren,' not 'Follow the

Brother."' He drew close to me thereafter because I had shown respect

for a principle that was precious to him.  There is only one "Brother"

to follow, and that is our Prophet President.  But even he does not act

alone, for he has counselors.



	These same principles that govern the function of the presiding

councils of the Church work equally well in auxiliary organizations. 

And they apply to a combination of the two, such as in the board of

trustees, where great women endowed with a special credential of

insight have full voice.



	As a trustee, I have, over the years, uniformly referred problems

that came individually to me back to the university administration, or

to the board, not wanting, as a brother, to assume what belonged to the

Brethren.  I have generally not even asked for a report, nor have I

intervened unless assigned to do so.



	These checks and balances that the Lord intended to operate in his

Church are, after all, the safe course.  If we are to meet the great

challenges now facing this university, we must respect these

principles.  The Lord said, "I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not

one ye are not mine" (D&C 38:27).  And, the Lord added:



	I give unto you directions how you may act before me, that it may

turn to you for your salvation.

	I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not

what I say, ye have no promise. [D&C 82:9-10]



	And, I repeat, "I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye

are not mine" (D&C 38:27).



This Board of Trustees



	Even with all of this, there are those who believe that priesthood

and auxiliary leaders are not really qualified to govern a large

university.  Some have even recommended that an independent board of

trustees be organized, made up of specialists or experts representing

the professions, business, industry, and government, believing that

others would better understand the social, philosophical,

technological, and professional issues such as might relate to the

administration of a university.  They have suggested that such a board,

provided with independent sources of finance, would protect the

Brethren from their own lack of qualification.



	If career or secular experience is considered to be essential, and

I admit it has a place, if that is thought to be indispensable for

members of a board, we are not altogether lacking in such

qualification.  However, we may not put quite the premium on them as

others do.



	It may be of interest to you to review some of the career or

secular qualifications of those who presently preside over the Church

schools and over this university.  Since I have gone to some length to

explain how we work as a body--as one--I will present something of a

composite resume of the career or secular experience of the trustees of

Brigham Young University.  While we do not consider such qualifications

to be indispensable, some others evidently do.



	Since this is a community of learning, I will list first the

academic degrees held by members of the board.  Five of the twelve

trustees have earned doctor's degrees.  One of the five holds both a

doctor of medicine degree from the University of Utah and a Ph.D.

degree in surgery and physiology from Minnesota.  The other doctorates

are in law, business administration, and education.  The universities

represented are Harvard, Chicago, Southwestern, and Brigham Young.



	Four other board members hold master's degrees in agriculture,

business, political science, and one in curriculum design (held by one

of the women on the board).  The schools represented are Iowa State,

the University of Utah, and Brigham Young.

 



	All but one of the others hold either a bachelor of arts or a

bachelor of science degree.  That one is a homemaker, having devoted

herself to helping her husband through medical school and to her

family.  She brings a dimension to our board that is consummately

precious--a perspective that is valued above degrees.  This great woman

presides over the largest women's organization in the world with a

membership of more than 2.75 million women.



	As for scholarship, it ranges from average to Phi Beta Kappa, Phi

Kappa Phi.  Several degrees were bestowed cum laude (with honor). 

There is magna cum laude, summa cum laude, and, as with me and you, if

by chance you graduate, "Thank you, Laude."



	As for experience in education, one board member served as

executive vice president of the University of Utah; another was

professor and acting dean of the School of Law at the University of

Chicago and was president of Brigham Young University.  Another was

associate professor of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford

University, visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, and president of Ricks College.  Another is an honorary

professor at three universities in Shandong and Shanxi provinces in

China and visiting professor at other universities in China as well as

at universities in Mexico, Chile, and Uruguay.



	Two have served as Church commissioner of education and one as

assistant administrator of seminaries and institutes and on the

administrative council at BYU.  Four have served on the board of

regents that governs all public colleges and universities in the state.



	As for honorary doctorates, I count thirty-three, and I may have

missed one or two.  It is a little hard to find out.  They were

bestowed by public and private universities across the nation in

humanities, letters, law, science, medical science, public service, and

other fields.



	Board members have received honors, awards, fellows, and

distinguished alumni from universities, prestigious societies,

professional and scholastic organizations.  There are honorary citizen

and other awards from community, state, and national governments,

including one from the government of Argentina.  It would take pages

even to list them.



	Board members have given public service to community, state, and

nation.  The chairman of the board of trustees served for eight years

in the president's cabinet.  Several have served on select or advisory

committees to the White House and to departments of the federal

government.  One was chairman of the board of the Public Broadcasting

System.  Some members have served in state senates, one as a justice on

the state supreme court, others on city councils.  The list of service

on governors' select committees; committees for constitution revision,

for selection of judges and other public servants; commissions; boards;

advisory committees; foundations; trusts; and other community, state,

and regional organizations is far too long to list here.



	And, of current interest and importance, there is one other

category of experience of members of your board of trustees: that is

service in the military.  Included on this list is a marine corporal, a

combat infantry staff sergeant, an army medical officer and an army

artillery officer, a field officer and bomber pilot in the air force,

and two who served in the navy.  President Benson was in the ROTC at

Utah State when World War I ended.



	In our free enterprise system, board members have been both

employer and employed and have been owners, chairmen, directors,

officers, and managers of corporations and have owned and do own stock

in business and industry, as all citizens have a right to do.  For

instance, at the time of his call to the Twelve, one member of the

board was serving on twenty-six corporate boards.  Some are a little

puzzled that such service has continued after their call, thinking it a

little too worldly for Church leaders.  But such service contributes

valuable experience and serves other very important interests of the

Church.  We are caught between those who think we are not in touch with

the world and those who think our keeping in touch with it is somehow

wrong.  Keep in mind the system of lay clergy the Lord established.  We

are commanded to remain in the world but not to be of the world.



	At present, 1,711 institutes of religion enroll members in

sixty-two countries, and there are seminaries in ninety countries.  In

addition, we operate twenty-six elementary, middle, or secondary

schools about the world.  During just the last one year, members of the

board have traveled in forty-six countries.  Many of the countries have

seen more than one board member.  Besides the main countries you might

expect on the list are Swaziland, Lesotho, the Soviet Union, Estonia,

Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, the People's Republic of China, and many

others.



	We do not go as tourists.  We meet with church, educational,

community, and government leaders and, of far more importance, we meet

with the rank and file of the people.  We gain a knowledge of "things

which are abroad; the wars and perplexities of the nations, and the

judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and

of kingdoms" (D&C 88:79).  There is not a body of twelve people

anywhere on this earth who travel as broadly and as constantly as

members of this board of trustees.  Should a problem arise virtually

anywhere on earth, one of us has been there recently.



	Members of the board hold in common their ordinary beginnings. 

They came from homes, as you did, where their parents sent them away to

school, often at great sacrifice, with encouragement to apply

themselves so that they could be of service one day to their families,

the community, and the Church.  One became an agricultural agent,

another a secretary, one a printer, two became lawyers, one a

lumberman, another a hardware merchant, three became teachers, one a

surgeon, one an accountant, and one a homemaker.



	Were I to add the education, travel, and career qualifications of

the other six members of the Twelve who do not presently serve on the

board of trustees, it would increase this report proportionally.



	Now, all of these things are never, absolutely never, talked of or

even mentioned in our circles.  In thirty years, I have never heard one

conversation on all of that which I have just reviewed for you.  I risk

being scolded for even mentioning them here.  I know that most of you,

too, do not consider these secular or career achievements as being

overruling in their consequence, but there are those who do.  They feel

we may not understand the mysteries of the world of academia and

therefore are not fully qualified to set policy, standards, and

direction for a university.  For them, perhaps these things needed to

be said.



	There are other qualifications on which we do set higher premium. 

While secular achievements deserve and receive our respect, as

indicated by what we have done in those fields, they are not those on

which we place the highest value.  Those of higher value relate to the

qualities of character that establish a balance in education and have

to do with moral stability.



	We know the method of learning associated with the workings of the

Spirit.  We treasure the gift of the Holy Ghost that has been conferred

upon every member of the Church and that can influence others who are

seeking the truth.  We know the voice of the Lord when he speaks.  We

know the processes of revelation and how to teach them to those who

want to learn.  These qualifications we do talk about constantly and

strive ever to measure up to them.



"By Study and Also by Faith"



	Now listen carefully! It is crucial that you understand what I

tell you now.  There is danger! Church-sponsored universities are an

endangered species--nearly extinct now.  Recently the administration of

Baylor University announced that it was severing ties with the Baptist

Church, which founded it 145 years ago.  Other Baptist schools--Furman,

Mercer, and Wake Forest--are going through the same process.  They join

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Chicago, Columbia, and a long, long list of

others--other universities that have severed ties from the churches

that founded and financed them.



	Last month's journal of the New York-based Institute on Religion

in Public Life was devoted to the de-Christianizing of American

universities.  I quote from their editorial entitled "The Death of

Religious Higher Education."



	The beginning of wisdom on this subject is to recognize that the

road to the unhappy present was indeed paved with good intentions.  To

be sure, there were relevant parties who made no secret of their

hostility to religion.  But, for the most part, the schools that lost,

or are losing, their sense of religious purpose, sincerely sought

nothing more than a greater measure of "excellence." The problem is

that they accepted, uncritically, definitions of excellence that were

indifferent to, or even implicitly hostile to, the great concerns of

religion.  Few university presidents or department chairmen up and

decided one day that they wanted to rid their institutions of the

embarrassment of religion.  It may  reasonably be surmised that most

believed that they were advancing a religions mission by helping their

schools become like other schools--or at least more like the "best" of

other schools.  The language of academic excellence is powerfully

seductive. ["The Death of Religious Higher Education," First Things,

January 1991, p. 8]



	If we succeed in keeping BYU in faith with the founders, we will

do something very few others have done.  Our best protection is to

ensure that the prerogatives of this unique board of trustees are

neither diluted nor ignored.  Boards of education, trustees, and

regents are venerable and indispensable institutions in education in

the free world.  They are not to be taken lightly.  Theirs, and theirs

alone, is the right to establish policies and set standards under which

administrators, faculties, and students are to function--standards of

both conduct and of excellence.

 



	It is not unusual for highly trained professionals to smart under

the necessity of working under a lay board whose members may not be as

highly educated as they consider themselves to be.  But the future of

education in the free world, and of this unique university, depends on

safeguarding the prerogatives of the boards of education.



	The ties between universities and the churches that founded them

have been severed because of constantly recurring contention between

the spiritual and the temporal; the never-ending controversy between a

narrow view of science and religion; the ancient conflict between

reason and revelation.



	There are two opposing convictions in the university environment. 

On the one hand, "seeing is believing, " On the other, "believing is

seeing." Both are true! Each in its place.  The combining of the two

individually or institutionally is the challenge of life.  Neither

influence will easily surrender to the other.  They may function for a

time under some sort of a truce, but the subtle discord is ever

present.



	They mix the way oil and water mix--only with constant shaking or

stirring.  When the stirring stops, they separate again.  It takes a

catalytic process to blend them.  This requires the introduction of a

third ingredient, a catalyst, which itself remains unchanged in the

blending process.



	Each of us must accommodate the mixture of reason and revelation

in our lives.  The gospel not only permits but requires it.   An

individual who concentrates on either side solely and alone will lose

both balance and perspective.  History confirms that the university

environment always favors reason, and the workings of the Spirit are

made to feel uncomfortable.  I know of no examples to the contrary.



	Spirituality, while consummately strong, reacts to very delicate

changes in its environment.  To have it present at all and to keep it

in some degree of purity requires a commitment and a watch-care that

can admit to no embarrassment when compared with what the scholarly

world is about.



	The moral and spiritual capacity of the faculty and what they

shall give, and the spiritual atmosphere in which students are to learn

and what they receive, will not emerge spontaneously! They happen only

if they are caused to happen and thereafter, maintained with unwavering

determination.  We at BYU can be competent in both and also merit the

respect of those charged with the accreditation of institutions of

higher learning.



	Some have envisioned BYU as a great graduate research university

as opposed to an undergraduate teaching university.  A few years ago

the term "the Harvard of the West" was tossed about, and moves were

made to recast BYU in that image.  But that transformation was not

initiated by the board of trustees.



	Recently, lengthy discussions on the future role of BYU have been

held between the board of trustees and the administration.  They have

led in the direction of defining BYU as an "academically selective,

teaching-oriented, undergraduate university, offering both liberal arts

and occupational degrees, with sufficiently strong graduate programs

and research work to be a major university" (Minutes of the Church

Board of Education, 7 June 1990).



	When that role is finally defined, it will be determined by the

board of trustees, whose fundamental credentials were not bestowed by

man and whose right and responsibility it is to determine policy and

"approve all proposed changes in basic programs and key personnel" and

establish standards for both faculty and students (Minutes of Executive

Committee, 27 April 1982).



	I spoke of the catalytic process where two seemingly antagonistic

influences can merge and each give strength to the other.  The

essential catalyst for the fusion of reason and revelation in both

student and faculty is the Spirit of Christ.  He is "the true light

that lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (D&C 93:2).  The

blending medium is the Holy Ghost, which is conferred upon every member

of the Church as a gift.



	The blending of opposites is everywhere present in life.  A base

metal, fused with a precious one, can produce an alloy stronger and

more resilient than either component alone.



	Such a blending is seen in the priesthood of God, ordained to be

conferred upon the ordinary man who must live in the base, workaday

world where reason and the muscles of his body are the substance of his

livelihood.  The blending in of revelation will make him anything but

ordinary.  While such a man must remain in the world, he is not of the

world.



	Marriage is the wedding of opposites, the union of the man (who

faces the world) with woman (who is often the more refined in spirit). 

When neither seeks to replace the other, the complementing differences

in their nature are fostered.  Then, in expressions of love, life

itself is conceived, and together they receive a fullness of joy.  The

fusion of reason and revelation will produce men and women of

imperishable worth.



	On the one hand is reason: the thinking, the figuring things out,

the research, the pure joy of discovery, and the academic degrees man

bestows to honor that process.  On the other is revelation, with the

very private and very personal, the very individual, confirmation of

truth.  The combining of them is the test of mortal life!



	And the spirit and the body are the soul of man. [D&C 88:15;

emphasis added]



	For man is spirit.  The elements are eternal, and spirit and

element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy;

	And when separate , man cannot receive a fulness of joy....

	The glory of God is intelligence, or, in  other, words, light and

truth. 

	Light and truth [will] forsake that evil one.... 



	[We are] commanded ... to bring up [our] children in light and

truth, [D&C 93:33-34, 36, 40; emphasis added]



	Now, all of that is but a preface, an introduction, to my message,

which I present in two short sentences.



	To you of the administration and faculty, I repeat the counsel

given to Dr. Karl G. Maeser by President Brigham Young when he sent him

here to start this school: "You ought not to teach even the alphabet or

the multiplication tables without the Spirit of God.  That is all.  God

bless you."



	To you students, I quote a revelation to you from the Lord: "As

all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of

wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek

learning, even by study and also by faith" (D&C 88:118).



	I give to you my sure witness of the Lord and pray that he will

protect this great university as together we move into the perilous

years ahead.  I say this in the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.



                              GETTING TO

                              KNOW CHINA

                            Dallin H. Oaks



     Dallin H. Oaks is a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles

     of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This

     devotional address was delivered on 12 March 1991 in the Marriott

     Center.



	At the close of his earthly ministry, our Savior, Jesus Christ,

said to his apostles:



	Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name

of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. [Matthew 28:19]



	Almost everyone in this audience has participated or will

participate in the fulfillment of that divine direction.  The Church of

Jesus Christ is a missionary church.  It was so in the beginning, and

it is so today in The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints.



	The most populous nation in the world today is the People's

Republic of China.  Its 1.1  billion people make up more than 20

percent of the world's population.



	We have many thousands of members of Chinese ancestry in many

parts of the world, including over 30,000 in Hong Kong and Taiwan. 

About 10,000 of our members were born in the People's Republic of

China, and many still live in that country.



	The Chinese who are members of our Church make up such a tiny

fraction of the total population of the People's Republic of China that

we could not really say that we have fulfilled our scriptural duty to

teach that nation.  This is especially clear when we do not have any

missionaries in the People's Republic of China.  It is currently

against the law to send foreign missionaries to China or to proselyte

in that country.  And because our Church observes the laws of each

nation, we have no plans to send missionaries or to engage in

proselyting activities in that great land.



	Today I will speak of the past, the present, and the future of The

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the People's Republic of

China.  I will give special and thankful emphasis to the part that

Brigham Young University students and teachers are playing in that

great drama.



A Beginning



	I begin my account in October 1978, when President Spencer W.

Kimball gave a great missionary address to the Regional Representatives

of the Church.  I was then a Regional Representative, and I was also

president of BYU. (I pause to note that in October 1978, most of you

who are now freshmen at BYU were just entering the first grade.  It

takes many years to accomplish the purposes of the Lord.  That idea has

special application to China.)



	President Kimball spoke of our obligation to take the gospel to

what he called "the uttermost parts of the earth" (see D&C 58:64).  His

message was electrifying.  No one who was present will ever forget the

witness they felt that this was a prophet giving the Lord's message to

the leaders and members of his restored Church.



	The prophet pleaded for us to move forward, saying, "It is better

for something to be underway than under advisement." He referred to

various nations where we had not yet taught the restored gospel.  He

singled out China for special praise, saying:



	By comparison with the widespread breakdown of morality and

discipline in the western world, the Chinese are a disciplined,

industrious, frugal, closely knit people.  Their moral standards are

very high by modern western standards. . . . Family life is strong,

with old family members still given great respect and care.



	I quote just two more sentences from President Kimball's great

message:



	When we are ready, the Lord will use us for his purposes.

	There are almost three billion people now living on the earth in

nations where the gospel is not now being preached.  If we could only

make a small beginning in every nation, soon the converts among each

kindred and tongue could step forth as lights to their own people and

the gospel would thus be preached in all nations before the coming of

the Lord.



	When I returned from that meeting I asked my assistant, Bruce L.

Olsen, to begin planning for a BYU performing group to go to China. 

That idea was farfetched, because at that time the United States had no

diplomatic relations with China, and U.S. tourists were not welcome

there.  But a prophet had called for beginnings, and this was a

beginning BYU could attempt.



	What followed seemed a miracle, even for those with the greatest

faith.



	just two months later, in December 1978, President Jimmy Carter

unexpectedly announced that the United States and China would exchange

formal diplomatic recognition on the first day of 1979.  With that

announcement, a BYU trip to China became at least a theoretical

possibility--if an invitation could be obtained, if our board of

trustees would approve, and if we could figure out what music and dance

numbers would be acceptable in that country with which we had so little

experience.



	Beyond all of the political and musical questions were a host of

technical problems.  For example, if a BYU group were invited, could

they take their sound and lighting equipment, and, if so, what was the

voltage of the power source in the various cities of China, and what

kind of connections would be necessary to tap into it?



	Miracle followed miracle.  Our friends in Friendship Ambassadors,

a group that fostered improved international relations through the

performing arts, had close ties with officials in Romania.  That nation

had close relations with China.  China offered to receive a tourist

group sent by Romania in February 1979.  Romania authorized Friendship

Ambassadors to assemble the group, and they invited BYU to send

representatives.  By these means, Val Lindsay and Ed Blaser went to

China on a trip that established our contacts with the China Travel

Service, answered most of our technical questions, and gave us valuable

insights into what kind of music and dance would be acceptable to

Chinese audiences.



	During the first few months of 1979 we began serious but

confidential planning about how we could assemble a group with the

varied talents that would be required for a first-class variety show. 

But we could only plan.  We could not make any arrangements until we

had a formal invitation from our Chinese hosts.



	How would we obtain an invitation? As often happens when we are

doing the work of the Lord and the time is right, friends were raised

up to assist us.  A BYU official had a friend on the island of Guam. 

As president of a friendship association with China, this businessman

had been one of the first Westerners to visit that country.  He

identified the Chinese officials we should contact to seek an

invitation.  He also counseled us to enlist the help of prominent U.S.

senators.  Idaho Senator Frank Church, then chairman of the Senate

Foreign Relations Committee, wrote Chinese officials on our behalf. 

His enthusiastic endorsement of BYU was extremely helpful.



	As we kept our plans secret and waited for an invitation, our

spirits were touched at the experience of a former BYU student

performer.  Linda Tang, a Chinese girl from Hong Kong, was working in

San Francisco on an internship.  As she sat at her desk one day, she

had a distinct spiritual impression that she was going to return to BYU

and travel to China with the Young Ambassadors.  She dismissed the idea

as impossible, but the impression kept returning.  Several days later,

she called Randy Boothe and told him about her impression.  When I

heard about Linda's experience, I felt reassured that our desires would

be realized.  I was not surprised when she was later chosen to perform

on the trip.



	As I recall, it was late in March or early in April when we

received a brief invitation from the China Travel Service.  They

invited a BYU group to come, but they gave no performance commitments

or dates, and they indicated that the group would just be tourists.



	Throwing caution to the winds, we went ahead on faith.  By this

time, all of our performing groups were committed to other summer

tours.  Randy Boothe assembled a group of twenty performers by

depleting the Lamanite Generation and two Young Ambassador groups. 

They rushed into the rehearsals necessary to learn the complex

choreography and music for a ninety-minute program.  They also had to

learn enough Chinese to do some of the songs and narration in that

language.



	For an account of what happened next, I quote Bruce L. Olsen, the

senior university official on the tour:



	Four days before the group departed, a telegram arrived from China

which told us to bring only simple musical instruments.

	Although the students had been restricted to one carry-on bag, and

our equipment was cut to a bare minimum, we still had over 2,000 pounds

of costumes and equipment. Despite the nature of the telegram, we

prayerfully decided to move ahead with our plans.

	Upon arrival in Canton we met our guides, who called a meeting in

the International Visitors' Lounge of the airport. I wish you could

have seen that gathering. Surrounding a little round table were our

tour leaders, Elder James E. Faust of the Council of the Twelve (who,

along with Sister Faust, was assigned by President Kimball to accompany

us), and the two guides. "Just what do you expect from us?" Miss Wong

asked. I remember tightening my stomach muscles and saying, "We hope to

do at least one major performance in each city." The guides then

questioned us in minute detail about the performance--they wanted to

see the music, the lyrics to each song, and to know what the

choreography to each number meant. As we moved through the show, Randy

would call the students over to give their Chinese narrations or to

sing their Chinese songs. Soon the balcony area of the airport was

rimmed with Chinese watching this curious performance. At the

conclusion, the guides announced that we would perform the next morning

at the Peking Minorities Institute.

	It was clear that this performance was a test. The performance

went well, and by the end our Chinese hosts announced that we would be

giving another performance in the Red Tower Theater, the most

prestigious performance hall in Peking.

	The next day Miss Wong took Randy aside and told him that a great

deal was riding on this concert. She said, "I don't want to alarm the

students, but I am very afraid for them." She explained that the

artistic elite of Peking would be attending the concert, the symphony

orchestra personnel, the ballet, the opera, and the song and dance

troupe--in fact, the 1,600 seats would be filled with artistic people.

She said that two years ago she was sure that our group would not have

been admitted to China and that how the Young Ambassadors were received

would decide whether we were invited back or whether other groups would

ever be admitted. We called a special meeting to explain the gravity of

the situation to the Young Ambassadors and asked them to prepare.

	It was an uneasy group of students that went on stage the next

night, but their faith was great and their talent and hours of practice

were rewarded. The audience responded to the performance quickly.

Fifteen minutes into the show people were coming backstage telling us

that "The important people in the audience are pleased." The audience

"oohed" and "aahed" during dance routines and called back the clever

number from the musical Shenandoah, "Next to Lovin' I Like Fightin'

Best," for three bows and then demanded that after intermission we

start our show by doing it again.

	Prior to leaving for China, we were told not to expect anything

but light, polite applause, but this audience demanded four encores and

not only gave a standing ovation, but also held their hands high over

their heads while clapping. It was the most enthusiastic response I

have seen anywhere in the world. It was obvious we had passed the test.

The Miracle of China



	What does all this have to do with teaching the gospel in all

nations? When the first LDS missionaries began their work in Great

Britain and Europe, they were often going to the countries of their own

ancestry, where the laws and customs were similar to those in the

United States.  That has been the pattern for more than a century.  In

Europe and in the nations of the Americas, our missionaries have been

welcomed or at least tolerated.



	In contrast, in the century ahead, we will knock on the doors of

nations with whom we do not have ancestral ties.  In addition to

differences of language and nationality, we will face barriers of

culture and some barriers of hostility from wars or resentments against

prior colonial or other repression.



	The laws of some nations, such as China, presently forbid foreign

missionaries.  In other nations, the laws forbid any proselyting by

Christians.  Some of those barriers will drop when friendship is

cultivated and trust is earned.  Other barriers will fall because of

the blessings of God, whose work this is.  Through his prophet he

promised:



	If . . . the children of men keep the commandments of God he doth

nourish them, and strengthen them, and provide means whereby they can

accomplish the thing which he has commanded them. [1 Nephi 17:3]



	I think this is what President Kimball meant when he said:



	If we could only make a small beginning in every nation, soon the

converts among each kindred and tongue could step forth as lights to

their own people and the gospel would thus be preached in all nations

before the coming of the Lord.



	I think of this as I look at the miracle of China.  In 1921 Elder

David O. McKay went to China and dedicated that land for the preaching

of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  In his dedicatory prayer, he pleaded

with our Father in Heaven to bless the land of China and its people. 

Notable among his petitions were these:



	May peace and stability be established throughout this republic.

	Stay the progress of pestilence, and may starvation and untimely

death stalk no more through the land.

	Grant, our Father, that these young men and women may, through

upright, virtuous lives, and prayerful study, be prepared and inclined

to declare this message of salvation in their own tongue to their

fellowmen.



	Many of Elder McKay's petitions have now been answered.  I was

impressed with this when I spoke with an aged Chinese man in Shanghai

in the summer of 1980.  Through an interpreter he told me that when he

was a boy, he saw thousands of his countrymen without shelter or food. 

He described seeing people on the streets dying of starvation.  Now, he

said with some pride, he and his wife had a place to live and a pension

that provided adequate food.  By comparison with my life, his

circumstances were meager; by comparison with his life as a youth and

the lives of his progenitors, he was prosperous.



	Fifty-eight years after Elder McKay's prayer of dedication,

another young apostle, Elder James E. Faust, offered a prayer of

rededication.  Surrounded by the BYU participants in that first tour to

China, in a location close to where the original prayer was offered, he

prayed for a fulfillment of the impressive blessings promised upon that

great land and its noble people.



	The following year my companion and I were privileged to be in

China with the second group of Young Ambassadors to perform in that

land.  Presiding over that group was Elder Gordon B. Hinckley.  The

next year, 1981, BYU's American Folk Dancers, forty-two strong,

performed in China.  They were accompanied by Elder Boyd K. Packer and

President Jeffrey R. Holland.  Their performances were televised live

in China to an estimated audience of 135 million.



	Since that time many other BYU performers have visited China,

including the Ballroom Dancers, the Lamanite Generation, the Wind

Symphony, and the Chamber Orchestra.  In these visits, many ties of

friendship have been forged, and much understanding has been gained. 

We have increased in our understanding of China and its aspirations and

problems.  For example, of the fifteen men currently serving in the

First Presidency and Council of the Twelve, ten have traveled in China,

most more than once.  Several of us have had in-depth discussions with

senior Chinese leaders.



	On their part, Chinese officials have chosen to take a close look

at our Church and its leaders and members, here in the United States

and in China.  For example, Church leaders have met with three Chinese

ambassadors to the United States, one of whom visited us in Salt Lake

City.  We have hosted many Chinese leaders, including the current

premier, at BYU-Hawaii and the Polynesian Cultural Center.  We have met

with a former president of China, with a former vice premier and

foreign minister.  Scores of other leaders could be mentioned.



	In other important developments of the last decade, temples of the

Lord have been dedicated on the continent of Asia (in Korea) and on

Taiwan.  In Asia we have six stakes of Zion whose membership is

predominantly Chinese (in Taiwan and Hong Kong).  Chinese people hold

key leadership positions in the Church in many other great cities and

countries of the world, including Toronto and Victoria in Canada,

Melbourne in Australia, Singapore and the Republic of the Philippines

in Asia, and in many cities in the United States.



	We cannot send missionaries to the People's Republic of China, but

each year China sends thousands of its choicest sons and daughters to

various foreign lands to study.  In those places they quite naturally

meet our missionaries, and many of these Chinese students are joining

the Church.  Some have already returned to China, and others will

return when their studies are completed.  We encourage our Chinese

members to return to China.  Their country needs them in China and the

Lord needs them in China.  The work of China will go forward with these

young engineers, scientists, scholars, and artists.  At the same time,

the work of the Lord will go forward in a natural law-abiding way

because of those who have received the message of the restored gospel. 

In every land, that message makes its recipients better citizens,

better workers, and better friends.



Furthering Our Ties of Friendship



	Perhaps you have noted that as I have spoken of the nations of the

world, I have not spoken about governments or wars or rebellions or

political repression.  I am aware of all of these things, which occur

in many nations.  They, of course, affect the timing and manner in

which we pursue our divine mandate to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ

in all nations.  But overarching all of these difficulties and

deviations are two great realities of mortal life: (1) the brotherhood

of man--all men and women of whatever nation, kindred, tongue, or

people; and (2) the Fatherhood of God, who has commanded us to teach

the great truths of his gospel in every nation and has promised us that

he will "provide means whereby [we] can accomplish the thing which he

has commanded [us]" (1 Nephi 17:3).



	Things do not happen rapidly in China.  When the impatience of

Americans meets the patience of Orientals, patience wins.  I believe

that in China the Lord will do his own work, and, as he has said in

modern scripture, his work will be done "in his own time, and in his

own way, and according to his own will" (D&C 88:68).



	In the meantime, we are privileged to be good friends to our

Chinese brothers and sisters.  In our day that friendship has many

forms.  I have spoken at length about our BYU performing groups, which

were in the vanguard in establishing our friendly relations with the

Chinese people and their leaders.  Our next and continuing relationship

is with the Chinese students and teachers who have left their own

country to study in other lands.  Many of these are at BYU, in Provo,

and in Hawaii.  Others are at the Polynesian Cultural Center, where

they are receiving hands-on experience in the important tourist

industry.  Other Chinese visitors are becoming acquainted with our

Church and its members in hundreds of other locations in North America,

Europe, and Asia.



	Many Latter-day Saints are becoming better acquainted with China

and its people by living or traveling in that great land.  The David M.

Kennedy Center here at BYU has arranged for LDS couples and singles to

be appointed by various Chinese colleges and institutes to go to China

to teach English for a year.  These valiant volunteers are doing a

great work of brotherly and sisterly service.  Many other Latter-day

Saints have traveled to China to serve its people.  Experts in

medicine, agriculture, technology, business, and the arts have

generously given service with their heads and hearts and hands. I hope

they always introduce themselves as members of The Church of Jesus

Christ of Latter-day Saints so that their service to China is

identified with the Christian mission of their church.



	That was surely true of Dr. Russell M. Nelson. Just after his call

to the Council of the Twelve, he fulfilled an earlier commitment to

serve for a month as a visiting professor of surgery at Shandong

Medical College in Shandong Province, China.  There he taught Chinese

surgeons the latest techniques of coronary arterial angiography and

bypass graft surgery, as he had also done for several years prior to

his call.  Sister Nelson taught English classes for the medical

students.  Their efforts are a model for Latter-day Saints who have

opportunities for service in China or other countries of the world.



	We have also sent books to libraries in China.  We have arranged

for microfilming of official and family records.  And we have sent

assistance to the victims of a devastating earthquake.



	Each year there are new examples of coincidences--I call them

miracles--that further our ties and our friendship with China and its

people.  I will give only one example, this from 1990.



	Exactly a year ago this month, Elder and Sister William L. Taylor,

missionaries laboring in the Ireland Dublin Mission, received an

invitation to go to China as the guests of the Chinese People's

Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.  They were invited

because of something that happened in China forty-five years earlier. 

High-ranking Chinese officials learned about them through the father of

a Chinese woman Elder and Sister Taylor had met in Ireland.  When the

mission president told me the circumstances, I approved their leaving

the mission field to accept this invitation.  I cautioned them that out

of respect for China's laws, they should not go to China as

missionaries, but as friends who would simply seek to increase

understanding between our peoples.



	William Taylor was working on Wake Island as a civilian contractor

in 1941.  In the initial weeks of World War II, he was taken prisoner

by the Japanese.  He spent three and a half years in a Japanese prison

camp near Shanghai, China.  In May 1945, he escaped while being

transferred north toward Beijing by train.  Eluding his pursuers and

suffering many hardships as he made his way across China, Brother

Taylor eventually found his way to the Communist-led Eighth Route Army. 

After about two months with these friendly forces, he was taken to

Yenan.  There, Brother Taylor met Mao Ze-dong, who told him that he was

the only foreign prisoner of war who had ever made a successful escape

in North China.  The two had their photograph taken together.



	Forty-five years later that photograph, shown to a Chinese contact

in Ireland, produced the invitation that took Elder and Sister Taylor

to China.  In China they were entertained for seventeen days in

Shanghai, Chongqing, Xi'an, Yenan, and Beijing, where they were hosted

at a banquet in the Great Hall of the People.  There they met a

distinguished Chinese leader who had been foreign minister of China. 

Through that contact by a faithful Latter-day Saint man, Church leaders

have been able to meet with this high-ranking man and further the ties

of friendship between our church and the People's Republic of China.



	As a footnote to this remarkable account, I should add that the

story of William Taylor's meeting with Mao Ze-dong is probably the

first story ever featured in both our Church News (7 July 1990, p. 6)

and in the Chinese government's Beijing Review (28 January 1991, p.

33). I hope it will not be the last.



	People sometimes ask me about what can be done to "open China." In

response, I state my belief that China is already "open"--it is we who

are closed.  We are closed because we expect the Orient to be the same

as the West, China to be the same as Canada or Chile.  We must open our

minds and our hearts to the people of this ancient realm and this

magnificent culture.  We must understand their way of thinking, their

aspirations, and their impressive accomplishments.  We must observe

their laws and follow their example of patience.  We must deserve to be

their friends.



	As we become friends of China, and as we learn from them, our

Father in Heaven, who has made "all nations of men ... and [has]

determined . . . the bounds of their habitation" (Acts 17:26), will

bring his purposes to pass in that great nation "in his own time, and

in his own way, and according to his own will" (D&C 88:68).



	The Lord has said, "I am able to do mine own work" (2 Nephi

27:20).  He is doing that work all over the world as walls crumble and

as old prejudices are readjusted.  He is doing his work in China, and

we who think we are important actors are often no more than admiring

spectators.  The work of the Lord will go forward.  We will soon see

the fulfillment of the Book of Mormon prophecy that "the Lord doth

grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his

word, yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have"

(Alma 29:8).



	I testify of the truthfulness of that promise and of the optimism

with which we look forward to continuing associations and to mutual

blessings with our great friends in the People's Republic of China. 

This is the church of Jesus Christ.  He is our Savior.  Of that I

testify as I ask the blessings of the Lord upon each of us in this

great work, in the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.



                              "IN HIM ALL

                              THINGS HOLD

                               TOGETHER"

                            Neal A. Maxwell



     Neal A. Maxwell is a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles

     of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This fireside

     talk was given on 31 March 1991 in the Marriott Center.



	I wish to talk about your unfinished journey.  It is the journey

of journeys and will be described quite differently this Easter night. 

It is an arduous journey.  The trek awaits--whether one is rich or

poor, short or tall, thin or fat, black or white or brown, old or

young, shy or bold, married or single, a prodigal or an ever faithful. 

Compared to this journey, all other treks are but a brief walk in a

mortal park or are merely time on a telestial treadmill.



Becoming Men and Women of Christ



	Your journey is embodied in an invitation from the resurrected

Lord, who himself inquired, "What manner of men [and women] ought ye to

be?" Then he directed, "Verily I say unto you, even as I am" (3 Nephi

27:27; emphasis added).  Making this journey qualifies us eventually as

the men and women of Christ.



	Confirming this developmental goal, the Prophet Joseph Smith

declared, "If you wish to go where God is, you must be like God, or

possess the principles which God possesses" (Teachings, p. 216). 

Peter, likewise, spoke of the manner of persons we ought to be in all

godliness (see 2 Peter 3:11).



	The scriptures provide the road map for this journey because it is

the word of God that will lead the men and women of Christ in a

straight and narrow course and land their immortal souls at the right

hand of God (see Helaman 3:29-30).



	Jesus, our guide and model, had a perfect guide and model himself:



	Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto

you, The, Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father

do: -for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son

likewise. [John 5:19]



	Just what Jesus saw "the Father do," including premortally, we do

not know, but Jesus was the perfect pupil and he had a Perfect Teacher!



	Each of us is at a particular point in the journey, having "come

thus far." However, if we are deflected from this journey, we will,

instead, become estranged from Christ:



	For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who

is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his

heart? [Mosiah 5:13]



	If we are not serving Jesus, and if he is not in our thoughts and

hearts, then the things of the world will draw us instead to them!

Moreover, the things of the world need not be sinister in order to be

diverting and consuming.



	For the serious disciple, the cardinal attributes exemplified by

Jesus are not optional.  These developmental milestones take the form

of traits, traits that mark the trail to be traveled.  After all,

should not Latter-day Saints have a special interest in what is

required to become a Saint, virtue by virtue and quality by quality?

Hear the words of King Benjamin:



	And becometh a saint ... submissive, meek, humble, patient, full

of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to

inflict upon him. [Mosiah 3:19; emphasis added]



	These attributes are eternal and portable! Being portable, to the

degree developed, they will go with us through the veil of death, and

still later they will rise with us in the Resurrection when all else

stays behind.  Meanwhile, so much of our time is ironically devoted to

learning and marketing perishable skills that will soon become

obsolete.  It isn't just the morticians who will have a vocational

crisis in the next world, brother and sisters.



	Please note several additions to these key qualities:



	And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and

gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering;

being temperate in all things. [Alma 7:23; emphasis added]



	Unsurprisingly, the disciple's way of using power and authority

will reflect these same qualities, for he is to lead by persuasion,

long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, love unfeigned, and kindness (see

D&C 121:41-42).  Such should be our leadership style.  It is certainly

Jesus'!



	Numerous other scriptures describe the same, small cluster of

spiritual qualities that the men and women of Christ are to strive to

achieve in their lives.  When significantly developed, these qualities

will convey the added "authority of example"! When you and I have seen

that authority, we are filled with admiration for it.



	Since Christ also declared, "If ye love me, keep my commandments"

(John 14:15), clear and specific obligations clearly rest upon us,

especially when we ponder this next commandment, which, if we love him,

we will strive to keep: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father

which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).

 



	 The Greek rendering for "perfect" is, by the way, "complete,

finished, fully developed." After his atonement and resurrection, Jesus

included himself as our pattern.  "Therefore I would that ye should be

perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect" (3 Nephi

12:48).  One of the problems we have in the Church is that we consider

perfection in abstraction, and it becomes too intimidating.  But when

we think of it in terms of the specific, cardinal attributes, and we

strive to develop these in a steady process of self-improvement, it is

quite a different matter.



	Ponder this ancient self-description with its focus on attributes:



	And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The

Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in

goodness and truth. [Exodus 34:6; emphasis added]



	When Jesus visited his hometown, the people wondered at his

gracious words (see Luke 4:22).  What is enjoined upon us is thus very

specific.  The specific qualities are made clear again and again in the

scriptures.  So is our need to follow the developmental path:



	For I have given you all example, that ye should do as I have done

to you. [John 13:15]



	And again, it showeth unto the children of men the straitness of

the path, and the narrowness of the gate, by which they should enter,

he having set the example before them. [2 Nephi 31:9]



	These qualities are not only developmental destinations, but,

meanwhile, if developed significantly, they also provide us with the

balance urgently needed for traveling on the demanding narrow path! It

is so easy to fall off one side or the other!



	The divine direction is clear: "Behold I am the light; I have set

an example for you" (3 Nephi 18:16).



	Too often when we seek to excuse ourselves, it is, ironically,

"the natural man" we are excusing.  Yet scriptures inform us "the

natural man" is to be "put off" (see Mosiah 3:19).  "He" certainly

should not be "kept on" because of a mistaken sense that the natural

man constitutes our individuality.



	In this process, substance and style interplay constantly-more

than we realize! How, for instance, can we be like the Father and Son

if we are poor listeners? How can we become "even as [Jesus] is" if we

are impatient or proud?



	The gospel gives proportion as to both substance and style.  For

example, it is far more important to be morally clean rather than to be

a clean-desk individual.  Similarly, it is better to "speak the truth

in love," as Paul counsels, than it is to simply speak the truth (see

Ephesians 4:15).



	These scriptural virtues are intertwined, interactive, and

interdependent.



	We are to be:



	1. Meek and humble--not self-concerned, dismissive, proud, seeking

ascendancy.  Blessed are the meek because they are not easily offended. 

Besides, those who "shine as lights in the world" have no need to seek

the spotlight! (See Philippians 2:15.) The world's spotlights are not

only fleeting, but they employ inferior light!



	2. Patient--not hectic, hurried, pushy.



	3. Full of love--not demanding, dominating, manipulative,

condescending, or harsh.

 



	4. Gentle--not coarse, brusque, and vindictive.



	5. Easily entreated--not unapproachable, inaccessible, and

nonlistening.



	6. Long-suffering--not impatient, disinterested, curt, easily

offended.  There are so many people in the Church, brothers and

sisters, waiting to be offended.  And it doesn't take long.  If one has

a chip on his or her shoulder, you can't make it through the foyer, so

to speak, without getting it knocked off.



	7. Submissive to God--not resistant to the Spirit, counsel, and

life's lessons.



	8. Temperate (self-restrained)--not egoistic, eager for attention

and recognition, or too talkative.  In your life and mine, the great

moments of commendation and correction have come usually in one-liners.



	9. Merciful--not judgmental and unforgiving.  Blessed are the

merciful, for they shall know the caress of causality as their

forgiving mercy restores others to wholeness! Though God is perfected

in the attributes of justice and mercy, we read that, finally, "Mercy

overpowereth justice" (Alma 34:15).



	10. Gracious--not tactless, easily irritated, ungenerous.



	11. Holy--not worldly.



	As we think about the process of becoming the men and women of

Christ, questions may naturally arise, such as: "Will all the men and

women of Christ be alike in every respect?" "Will there be a loss of

individuality?" I think not.  For instance, the quality of meekness is

clearly essential, but there are many individual ways of expressing

meekness.  Furthermore, what we now defensively regard as constituting

individuality is likely to be significantly refined.



	An immense developmental clue is to be found in these next words:

"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me" (Matthew 11:29).  By being

yoked, we can best learn of Jesus' perfected qualities, though only in

our comparatively small ways.  If we are meek, through our smaller but

similar experiences we will come to appreciate Jesus' perfected

qualities even more.  Then our adoration of him produces a desire for

emulation of him.



	The Prophet Joseph, whose own life was lived in a crescendo of

self-improvement amid adversity, observed:



	The nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views,

and the greater his enjoyments, till he has overcome the evils of his

life and lost every desire for sin; and like the ancients, [he] arrives

at that point of faith where he is wrapped in the power and glory of

his Maker and is caught up to dwell with Him. But we consider that this

is a station to which no man ever arrived in a moment. [Teachings, p.

51]



	The clearer one's views, the more one sees "things as they really

are," the greater the happiness!



	Thus, beyond the free gift of immortality, "working out our

salvation" includes "working out" the development of these eternal

virtues in our lives!



	Given the tremendous importance of these virtues now and in the

world to come, should we be surprised if, to hasten the process, the

Lord gives us, individually, the relevant and necessary clinical

experiences? We do not usually seek these, however.  Yet they seem to

come, don't they, even when we do not remember having signed up for a

particular course? Sometimes we find ourselves enrolled again in the

same course.  Apparently we were only auditing before; perhaps this

time it can be for credit!



	Emerson pleaded, "Give me truths: for I am weary of the surfaces"

("Blight," in The Complete Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson [New York:

Wm.  H. Wise & Co., 19291, p.  874). While amid so much that is inane,

and while surrounded by so many little and superficial things, it is

only in the bright light of the restored gospel that we can see the

truth as to who we really are and what our possibilities are! As Jacob

wrote, we not only see things as they really are, but as they really

will be (see Jacob 4:13).



	The Lord loves each of us too much to merely let us go on being

what we now are, for he knows what we have the possibility to become!



	It is all part of the journey of going home.  Developmentally, we

are all prodigals.  When we really "come to" ourselves, spiritually,

we, too, will say with determination, "I will arise and go to my

father" (Luke 15:18).



	This true celebration of the risen Lord of Easter, therefore, is

one of emulation as well as of adoration for him.  Since he is risen

from the grave, let us not be dead as to the things of the Spirit! How

can we celebrate the empty tomb with empty lives? How can we celebrate

his victory over death by being defeated by the world?



The Infinite Atonement



	May I now speak further of Jesus, of the Resurrection, and of the

Atonement?



	Christ's death and resurrection were specifically foretold in a

multitude of scriptures, including this from Isaiah.



	Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they

arise. . . .and the earth shall cast out the dead. [Isaiah 26:19]



	Ponder how that prophesy was later dramatically fulfilled as

recorded by Matthew:



	And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which

slept arose,

	And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into

the holy city, and appeared unto many. [Matthew 27:52-53]



	As signified by Jesus' personal resurrection and the recognition

of him by friends, immortality is not merely being one droplet in some

floating sea of cosmic consciousness! Resurrection is not being a mere

molecule in an unremembering cloud of drifting molecules! His

resurrection was personal and recognizable.  So will ours be! Did not

the resurrected ancients go into Jerusalem and appear unto many?



	Oh, how we adore Jesus for his atonement! For his free gift of

immortality to all! Consider for a moment, how would we regard Christ

without the reality of his atonement and resurrection? How would we

regard the Sermon on the Mount without the resurrection of the sermon

giver and eventually all of us? Without the reality of God's plan of

salvation and Jesus' atonement, how could the meek truly inherit the

earth? How could the pure in heart really see God? (See Matthew 5.)



	No wonder Paul wrote of Christ, "in him all things hold together"

(Revised Standard Version, Colossians 1:17).  When, collectively or

individually, brothers and sisters, things seem to fly apart for us at

times, what fitting imagery: "In him all things hold together"! Given

the centrality of the doctrine of resurrection, the Restoration has as

one of its main purposes to witness not only of Jesus' resurrection,

but that of all mankind.



	And righteousness will I send down out of heaven; and truth will I

send forth out of the earth, to bear testimony of mine Only Begotten;

his resurrection from the dead; yea, and also the resurrection of all

men. [Moses 7:62]



	There are so many ways in which Christ holds all things together. 

In fact, scriptures further advise, "all things bear record of me"

(Moses 6:63).



	At Christmastime, for instance, we celebrate a special star that

announced Jesus' birth at Bethlehem.  Thus, the so-called "little star

of Bethlehem" was actually very large in its declaration of divine

design! It had to have been placed in its precise orbit long, long

before it shone so precisely! Persuasive divine design is underscored

in what the Lord has said: "All things must come to pass in their time"

(D&C 64:32).  His overseeing precision pertains not only to

astrophysical orbits but to human orbits as well.  This is such a

stunning thing for us to contemplate as to our obligations to , "shine

as lights" within our own orbits and personal responsibilities! (See

Philippians 2:15.)



	In Jesus there is a unique blend of both meekness and majesty. 

Though the Lord of the Universe, Christ was meekly willing to live in

this world, which he created under the Father's direction.  In Paul's

words, he agreed to reside on earth as a person of no reputation (see

Philippians 2:7).



	We sing of his birth, "The stars in the heavens looked down where

he lay" ("Away in a Manger," Hymns, 1985, no.206). The onlooking

universe was apparently created by him under the Father's direction,

involving "worlds without number" (Moses 1:33).  Thus the meek Christ

child was cradled not only in a manger but was also cradled in the

midst of the majesty of his own creations! Even the least of these,

when we contemplate the heavens, permits us to see God "moving in his

majesty and power" (D&C 88:47).  Do we not sing of "All the worlds thy

hands have made"? (See "How Great Thou Art", Hymns, 1985, no. 86.)



	In the Eastern Hemisphere, the special star that signaled his meek

birth was recognized by only a few shepherds and several wise men. 

However, when Christ comes in majesty and power, the sign of his second

coming will be such that "all people shall see it together" (D&C

88:93).  He declares "all flesh shall see me together" (D&C 101:23). 

What an impending moment of unparalleled majesty for the Millennial

Messiah.  Yet it was preceded by the meekness of his Mortal

Messiahship.



	He created worlds, yet he was regarded as merely being a

carpenter's son.  He called and inspired Old Testament prophets.  Yet

Jesus was regarded by some contemporaries in the meridian of time as

being less than those very prophets (see Luke 16:29; John 5:45-46; John

8:33, 37-38).



	In his mortal ministry, meek Jesus spoke of how he had yet "other

sheep" (John 10:16).  Still later, when with those "other sheep" of the

Nephite fold, he spoke of still "other sheep" (3 Nephi 16:1-3).  How

many folds and flocks does he have? We do not know.  But there are

inklings of his majesty, for "by him, and through him, and of him, the

worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten

sons and daughters unto God" (D&C 76:24).  Yet this Great and True

Shepherd, in meekness, revealed to a solitary Samaritan woman that,

indeed, he was the Messiah (see John 4:26; Helaman 15:13).



	Because Jesus was brilliant beyond our comprehension, he knew even

premortally, though intellectually, what he was volunteering to do. 

Yet he had to experience it all personally--especially the awful agony

of Gethsemane and Calvary.  He who is "more intelligent than they all"

is also more meek than they all! (See Abraham 3:19.) He went meekly

forward and partook of the most bitter cup--and did so without becoming

bitter!



	Jesus descended below all things in order to be able to comprehend

all things (see D&C 88:6; 122:8).  Thus he is not only a fully atoning

Savior but is a fully comprehending Savior as well!



	Christ somehow came to know--just as specifically prophesied--our

griefs, sorrows, pains, sicknesses, afflictions, and infirmities

(Isaiah 53:4; 2 Nephi 9:21; Mosiah 14:4).  He did so, declared Alma,

that he might know, according to the flesh, how to succor and to help

us in the midst of our infirmities (see Alma 7:11-12).



	Only in restoration scriptures--specifically the Book of

Mormon--is Jesus' atonement referred to as the "infinite atonement" (2

Nephi 9:7; 25:16; Alma 34:12).



	It was "infinite" in several dimensions.  First, in what is called

the "great and last sacrifice," the sacrifice of a mere animal or an

imperfect mortal would not do.  It required the sacrifice of an

infinite being, an eternal and sinless God (see Alma 34:10).  Jesus,

you will recall, volunteered premortally: "Here am I, send me" (Abraham

3:27).  Never has any one offered to do so much for so many with so few

words! As an infinite being, Jesus had the unique power to put down and

take up his life.



	Jesus' atonement also had infinite impact affecting all mankind

(see 2 Nephi 25:16).  "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall

all be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22).



	Third, his atonement involved infinite suffering--suffering beyond

our comprehension (see D&C 19:18). I will note especially some of his

suffering.



	The Atonement fulfills many prophesies.  Jesus was to be spat upon

(see 1 Nephi 19:9), struck, scourged (see Mosiah 3:9).  He would be

given vinegar and gall (see Psalms 69:21).  He would issue a soul cry,

the very words of which were prophesied by David in a Messianic psalm

(see Psalms 22:1; Matthew 27:46).  None of his bones was to be broken

(see Psalms 34:20).



	We begin to see in the scriptures the weight of the Atonement

burdening him shortly before Gethsemane and Calvary:



	Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me

from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. [John 12:27]



The full weight fell upon him when he entered the Garden of Gethsemane,

where he "fell on the ground" (Mark 14:33-36).  At one point in the

process an angel appeared to strengthen him (see Luke 22:43).  The

keenest of all intellects to ever grace this planet endured sufferings

that were worse than even he, with his unexcelled brilliance, had ever

imagined.  Hence he was "sore amazed" or, in the Greek, "astonished," "

awestruck" (Mark 14:33).  He became " very heavy," which, in the Greek

means, "depressed and dejected."



	When in the garden, he issued "the Abba cry" (Mark 14:36; Psalms

22:1).  It was the most intimate, familial cry of a child in the

deepest of distress for his father.



	All the cumulative weight of our sins--the whole human

family--fell upon him.  He, and he alone, bore them! Thus he is able to

say, "I have overcome and have trodden the wine-press alone, even the

wine-press of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God" (D&C 76:107;

88:106).  This would include all the penalties that a God who cannot

look upon sin with the least degree of allowance would require (see D&C

1:31).  Could there be any wrath more fierce than divine wrath?

Especially as Jesus encountered cumulative, mortal grossness including

the vilest of all human sins? Jesus bore them.



	Indeed, Christ was alone, for "there was none with me" (Isaiah

63:3; D&C 133:50).  His astonishing, personal triumph was complete. 

Yet he who premortally had promised he would give glory to our Father

kept that promise, saying after accomplishing the Atonement,

"Nevertheless, glory be to the Father" (D&C 19:19; Moses 4:2).



	Several years ago, Christian physicians, writing in the Journal of

American Medicine, indicated they felt that, because of the loss of

blood when he was scourged, Jesus would have been in serious, if not

critical condition before he ever carried a portion of his cross to

Calvary.  Other scholars say Jesus was likely scourged with a Roman

flagellum, something similar to a cat-o'nine-tails with metallic

objects at the end of each thong.  If he assumed the usual posture for

scourging, it would have been kneeling over before his scourger so that

the muscles of his back were tensed and thus more easily torn and

shredded.  He would have lost much blood in addition to what he lost

earlier while bleeding from every pore in Gethsemane.



	No wonder he needed help to carry the cross!



	Jesus bore all mortal sins, mankind's cumulative total.  Thus

Jesus, of his suffering, truly could later say that "he descended below

all things" (D&C 88:6).



	The requirements of divine justice were severe.  According to

Elder James Talmage, in order "that the supreme sacrifice of the Son

might be consummated in all its fulness, the Father seems to have

withdrawn the support of His immediate Presence [while Jesus was on the

cross], leaving to the Savior of men the glory of complete victory over

the forces of sin and death" Jesus the Christ, 3rd ed. [Salt Lake City:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 19161, p. 661).  What

an awful and awesome aloneness! What deprivation, especially after the

special and extended closeness of Father and Son!



	On the cross, there came from Christ the soul-rending cry, "My

God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46; see also

Psalms 22:1).  What awful aloneness! Is it possible that Jesus needed

to suffer and experience aloneness not only so his personal triumph

would be total, but also so that he might "know according to the flesh"

how it is for us to feel forsaken? (See Alma 7:11-12.) In any case, he

felt forsaken and alone.



	Compared to his feeling forsaken, what are our occasional feelings

of being forsaken and alone? Or our feelings of being unnoticed and

unappreciated? Or our deprivations?



	All this emptying agony preceded the empty tomb, which signified

the glorious resurrection.  In his comments after the awful atonement,

he uses words like "sore" and "exquisite." Jesus tells us that he

suffered "both body and spirit" (D&C 19:1819).  He does not even

mention having been spat upon, struck, receiving vinegar and gall,

being scourged, etc.  He does say that he trembled because of pain and

would that he might not shrink, that he might not fail to partake fully

of the bitter cup and finish the Atonement (see D&C 19:18).  As already

indicated, he partook of the bitter cup and did so without becoming

bitter! Mercifully for all of us, he did not shrink!



	And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have

drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have

glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the

which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the

beginning. [3 Nephi 11:11]



	I have overcome and have trodden the wine-press alone, even the

wine-press of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God. [D&C 76:107]



	Thus he became our fully comprehending and fully atoning Savior. 

No wonder we sing of him, "How great thou art!" (Hymns, 1985, no. 86).



	Why did he do it?



	And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a

thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and

they smite him, and he suffereth it.  Yea, they spit upon him, and he

suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering

towards the children of men. [1 Nephi 19:9; emphasis added]



	Ponder the term loving-kindness.  It is a special word, used in

David's plea after he sinned so grievously:



	Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness:

according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my

transgressions. [Psalms 51:1; emphasis added]



	Hold that special word in your minds as I read in conclusion these

verses about his coming majesty:



	And it shall be said: Who is this that cometh down from God in

heaven with dyed garments; yea, from the regions which are not known,

clothed in his glorious apparel, traveling in the greatness of his

strength? . . .

	And the Lord shall be red in his apparel, and his garments like

him that treadeth in the wine-vat.

	And so great shall be the glory of his presence that the sun shall

hide his face in shame, and the moon shall withhold its light, and the

stars shall be hurled from their places.

	And his voice shall be heard: I have trodden the wine-press alone,

and have brought judgment upon all people; and none were with me; . . .

	And now the year of my redeemed is come; and they shall mention

the loving kindness of their Lord, and all that he has bestowed upon

them according to his goodness, and according to his loving kindness,

forever and ever. [D&C 133:46, 48-50, 52; emphasis added]



	Blessed be the Father for his loving-kindness in giving his Only

Begotten as Our Redeemer! We do not know, nor could we appreciate if we

did, the feelings of the Father as he watched his firstborn go through

the Atonement.  How great our Father is.  Blessed be the Son, Jesus

Christ, for his loving-kindness in atoning for our sins.  I "scarce can

take it in" ("How Great Thou Art").  Whenever you and I witness and

experience in a human being impressive loving-kindness, we marvel--and

we should marvel.  But such highly developed loving-kindness is still

not closely comparable to Jesus' loving-kindness.  So it is with each

of his qualities about which I have spoken tonight.  When we are

fortunate enough to experience the stirring samples of likeness, these

are real and wonderful experiences, but they are not yet fullness. 

They are not yet the fullness found in Jesus.  Even so, he of fullness

clearly and kindly beckons us to develop that greater likeness in our

lives which precedes fullness.  It is that likeness that will give us

the light in our lives so that we might, as Paul says, "shine as lights

in the world." These are the attributes that convey to us the added

authority of example.  And as we emulate him, by developing likeness in

these attributes, he will bless us and magnify us for his purposes.



	My quorum president, President Howard W.  Hunter, said twenty-six

years ago in April general conference, "He loves the Lord with all his

heart, who loves nothing in comparison of him and nothing but in

reference to him."



	As one of his special witnesses, I testify to you tonight that he

is risen.  And how marvelous it is, even given the great distance of

the trek spoken of earlier, that he beckons us to develop this likeness

so that one day we may have fullness with him.  It is the journey of

journeys.  Nothing else is even remotely comparable to it in its

importance.  There is nothing in comparison of him.  Indeed, as Paul

said, "in Christ all things hold together."



	That is my witness to you on this Easter night, the reality of his

mercy, the genuineness of his loving-kindness.  He has said to us,

"What manner of men [and women] ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you,

even as I am" (3 Nephi 27:27).  What an invitation! That invitation

verifies the possibility of its realization.



	I salute you for who you are, but, more important, for what you

have the possibilities to become.  There is none like him.  And as he

has said to us in the marvelous imagery of holy scriptures, "I wait for

you with open arms." But it is we who must go to him in this journey of

journeys.



	Finally, I witness to you the reality of the great Atonement.  It

is the central act of all human history.  Nothing else even remotely

approaches it in terms of significance.  The meek Jesus says: "Here am

I, send me." Jesus will come in majesty, and we will hail him for his

loving-kindness.  If we love him, we must so love one another.



	He is risen, and the symbol of Christianity might well be the

empty tomb that bespeaks the fullness of the great Atonement of which I

testify to you tonight in love and in appreciation and in recognition

of who you really are.  I bear this witness to you humbly, lovingly,

but, most important, in the holy name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.



                        "SIMON, I HAVE SOMEWHAT

                          TO SAY UNTO THEE":

                       JUDGMENT AND CONDEMNATION

                       IN THE PARABLES OF JESUS

                        Catherine Corman Parry



     Catherine Corman Parry is an associate Professor in the English

     Department at Brigham Young University.  This devotional talk was

     given on 7 May 1991 in the Wilkinson Center Ballroom.



	Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear

him.

	And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth

sinners, and eateth with them.

	And he spake this parable unto them, saying,

	What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them,

doth not leave the ninety an nine . . . and go after that which is

lost, until he find it?

	And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders,

rejoicing.

	And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and

neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my

sheep which was lost.

	I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one

sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons,

which need no repentance.  [Luke 15:1-71]



	For his purposes in this parable, the Lord divides us into three

groups: shepherds, sinners, and "just persons who need no repentance."

Surely he speaks with some exaggeration here, for excepting himself,

the Good Shepherd, we all--shepherds and just persons--are sinners

alike. In some ways, in fact, the Lord seems in this parable to speak

not from his own perceptions, but from our perceptions of ourselves. 

We tend to place sin in categories, to rank it as greater or lesser,

and then to see ourselves as better or worse, depending on which sins

we commit.  Thus, the flexible nature of parable form allows us to

identify with shepherd, with lost sheep, or with the ninety and nine.



"Rejoice with Me"



	Today I address these remarks to the ninety and nine, or rather to

those among us who, for instance, attend church even in good weather;

go visiting or home teaching even in bad weather; not only bake cookies

for the ill, depressed, or lonely, but try to bake them with love; all

the while working to keep harmony in our homes.



	If you find yourself even temporarily in this group, I would

direct your attention once again to verses 6 and 7 of Luke, chapter 15.



	And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and

neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me;for I have found my sheep

which was lost.

	I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one

sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons,

which need no repentance.



	Two ideas emerge from these verses: that the shepherd anticipates

his friends' excitement to be as great as his own over the found sheep,

and that the heavens do not rejoice as much over ninety-nine

continually faithful people as they do over one repentant sinner.  The

emphasis God places in other contexts on keeping the commandments and

enduring to the end leads us to suppose that the Lord again

exaggerates, though for what purpose he does not explain immediately. 

But surely it cannot have escaped him that such an exaggerated

statement would make us feel uncomfortable-or more specifically,

ignored, under-valued, and consequently angry.  But instead of

softening his language, he restates the concepts again in the next

parable, this time ignoring completely the faithful ninety-nine:



	Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one

piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek

diligently till she find it?

	And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her

neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the

piece which I had lost.

	Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the

angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. [Luke 15:8-10]



	Immediately following this we receive what we have come to call

the parable of the prodigal son.  In the context of rejoicing over

sinners repentant, it seems entirely appropriate that we call it this,

thus focusing on the father's joy at the return of his

no-longer-wayward son and his complete willingness to reintegrate the

son back into the family without further thought for his past sins.  As

the context of Luke, chapter 15, suggests, surely this is one aspect of

the parable.  It joyfully reminds us that at the center of all our

faith sits the Savior's atoning blood that can wash us as free from sin

as if we had never committed it: "though your sins be as scarlet, they

shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall

be as wool" (Isaiah 1:18); "Behold, he who has repented of his sins,

the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more" (D&C

58:42).  However, calling this the parable of the prodigal son may lead

us to forget that the story concerns two sons, not just one. Unlike the

earlier parables of the lost sheep and coin, the Lord chose not to end

this story with the prodigal's happy homecoming.  Instead, he

complicates its interpretation by focusing in the latter half of the

parable on the elder son, who complains about the mercy extended to his

younger brother.



	The literary nature of parable form invites ambiguity and multiple

interpretation.  Thus its meaning is flexible and unfixed, and our

interpretations must rely on thorough reading under the guidance of the

Holy Spirit.  We have all had the experience of finding new meaning in

a familiar scripture; frequently parables go even beyond this and mean

more than one thing at the same time.  The elder brother in this

parable is a case in point.  As many scriptural scholars--Elder Talmage

among them--have suggested, on one level this elder son represents the

Elder Son, the spiritual Firstborn and Only Begotten of the Father.  He

alone can say to his Father as this son says to his, "Lo, these many

years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy

commandment." And to him alone can the Father reply, "Son, thou art

ever with me" (Luke 15:29, 31).  Reading the elder son in this context,

it seems entirely appropriate that the father should promise him all

his inheritance and make no further



mention of reward for the younger son.



	But on another level the elder son must represent not the Savior,

but us, or at least some of us.  Surely we cannot imagine the Lord who

atoned for our sins complaining when the Father grants us mercy. 

Rather, in this context the plaintive whining of the parable's elder

son sounds somewhat like me, and perhaps like you:



	Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh

to the house, he heard musick and dancing.

	And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things

meant.

	And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath

killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.

	And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father

out, and intreated him.

	And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I

serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet

thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends:

	But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy

living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. [Luke

15:25-30]



Several things stand out in this passage.  For one thing, the father

wants the elder son to share his joy in the younger son's return; he

wants it enough to leave the party and go plead with him to come in. 

For another thing, the elder son judges the sins of the younger son by

making them explicit.  In verse 13 of the King James translation we

learn that the younger son "wasted his substance with riotous living";

in the mouth of his brother this becomes "hath devoured thy living with

harlots" (v. 30).  And finally, he distances himself from the former

prodigal by calling him "this thy son," rather than "this my brother."



	The father's response is instructive.  He does not remind the

elder son of his own sins, but instead acknowledges his faithful

continuance: "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine"

(v. 31).  But he does, gently but undeniably, rebuke the son's

unkindness: "It was meet [necessary, appropriate] that we should make

merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again;

and was lost ' and is found" (v. 32).  The rebuke comes most clearly, I

think, in his reminder of the young man's relationship to the other:

"this thy brother was dead, and is alive again"--not "this my son,"

but, "this thy brother." The elder son should rejoice not simply

because someone his father loves has returned, but because of his own

intimate link with another soul.



The Lord's Rebuke



	Let us turn now to a familiar episode in the Lord's life, recorded

in Luke, chapter 10, verses 38-42:



	Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain

village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.

	And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet,

and heard his word.

	But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and

said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve

alone? bid her therefore that she help me.

	And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art

careful and troubled about many things:

	But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part,

which shall not be taken away from her.



	Those of us with more of Martha than of Mary in us have long felt

that this rebuke is unjust.  While we do not doubt the overriding

importance of listening to the Lord, does the listening have to be done

during dinner preparations? Would it have hurt Mary to have joined us

in serving, then we all could have sat down to hear the Lord together?

And furthermore, what about the value of our work in the world? If it

weren't for us Marthas cleaning whatever we see and fussing over meals,

there would be a lot of dirty, hungry people in this world.  We may not

live by bread alone, but I've never known anyone to live without it. 

Why, oh, why couldn't the Lord have said, "You're absolutely right,

Martha.  What are we thinking of to let you do all this work alone?

We'll all help, and by the way, that centerpiece looks lovely"?



	What he did say is difficult to bear, but perhaps somewhat less

difficult if we examine its context.  In the same way that the father

in the parable of the prodigal son acknowledges his elder son's

faithfulness, the Lord acknowledges Martha's care: "Martha, Martha,

thou art careful and troubled about many things" (v. 41).  Then he

delivers the gentle but clear rebuke.  But the rebuke would not have

come had Martha not prompted it.  The Lord did not go into the kitchen

and tell Martha to stop cooking and come listen.  Apparently he was

content to let her serve him however she cared to, until she judged

another person's service: "Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath

left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me" (v. 40). 

Martha's self-importance, expressed through her judgment of her sister,

occasioned the Lord's rebuke, not her busyness with the meal.



	An instant that crystallizes the Lord's displeasure at our judging

others occurs in Luke, chapter 7. One of the Pharisees, Simon, invited

the Lord to a meal at his home:



	And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she

knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an

alabaster box of ointment,

	And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his

feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and

kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.

	Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within

himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who

and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a

sinner.

	And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say

unto thee.  And he saith, Master, say on.

	There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed

five hundred pence, and the other fifty.

	And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. 

Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?

	Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave

most.  And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged.

	And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this

woman?  I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my

feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the

hairs of her head.

	Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in

hath not ceased to kiss my feet.

	My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath

anointed my feet with ointment.

	Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven;

for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth

little. [Luke 7:37-47]



	The Lord could hardly have said anything more disturbing.  "Her

sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom

little is forgiven, the same loveth little." The way he has phrased it,

the woman loved the Lord much because she needed him much, and it was

her sins which created that need.  In other words, the greater our

sins, the greater our capacity to love? And the fewer our sins, the

less we need the Lord, and therefore the less our capacity to love him?

This sounds like an even more disturbing version of "joy shall be in

heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine

just persons, which need no repentance" (Luke 15:7).



	We need, as before, to examine the context of the Lord's reply. 

As the woman begins weeping on her Savior's feet, Simon makes at least

two judgments: one, that the woman is a sinner, and two, that Jesus is

no prophet or he would know her to be a sinner.  Both of these

judgments remain unvocalized; Simon speaks them "within himself," not

aloud.  Interestingly, though, the scriptures continue, "And Jesus

answering said unto him" (v. 40).  In other words, in a wonderfully

ironic demonstration that he was indeed a prophet, the Lord answered

Simon's unspoken thought.  Further, Simon expected that the Lord should

perceive the woman's sins; instead, he perceives and voices Simon's

unkindness.



	As we might expect, his rebuke follows the pattern of those we

examined earlier.  The Lord might have responded as he does in the

story of the woman taken in adultery, where he reprimands the crowd for

their judgment of the woman by reminding them of their own sins.  In

both that case and this case the Lord does not argue over the sins of

the woman; rather, the issue concerns the onlookers' right to

assess--or even to notice--those sins.  But this time, as with the

elder son in the parable, he acknowledges Simon's at least relatively

successful efforts at righteous living by associating him with the

debtor who owed less and by suggesting that Simon's sins may indeed be

fewer than the woman's.  And then, with the exaggerated phrasing we

heard in the parables of the lost sheep and coin, he follows this not

with praise of "the just person," but with a reaffirmation of his love

for the repentant sinner.  Again, the rebuke comes after the Pharisee's

silent condemnation of both the Savior and the weeping woman; Simon's

judgment was no less present for being unspoken.  And the Lord's

displeasure was no less keen.



"Judge Not, That Ye Be Not Judged"



	Having established a context of judgment preceding rebuke in these

cases, let us return briefly to the parables of the lost sheep and the

lost coin in Luke, chapter 15.  The first three verses establish the

context that prompted them:



	Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear

him.

	And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth

sinners, and eateth with them.

	And he spake this parable unto them.



These verses, in fact, establish the context for everything that occurs

in chapter 15, including the parable of the prodigal son.  Seen in this

light, the portion of the parable dealing with the elder son's

unkindness becomes central to its interpretation, since the Lord

directed the story not only to the publicans and sinners present, but

to the scribes and Pharisees who judged them. Thus the message is

multiple and complex, leaving no one room for self-satisfaction.



	It would seem then that the Lord meant it when he said,



	Judge not, that ye be not judged.

	For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what

measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. [Matthew 7:1-2]



In the parables and incidents we have explored, we have seen the Lord

return their sharp judgments to the heads of those who made them, so

that, quite literally, they were measured by their own standards and

found wanting.



	We might note that when the Prophet Joseph Smith reached Matthew,

chapter 7, in his translation of the Bible, he changed the wording to

"Judge not unrighteously, that ye be not judged: but judge righteous

judgment" (JST Matthew 7:1-2).  At first glance this seems a liberating

change: we need not refrain from judgment, but merely judge

righteously.  But what constitutes righteous judgment, and who

qualifies to make it? Simon, or the elder son? Martha, or the

Pharisees, or me, or you? While there are many things we must make

judgments about, the sins of another or the state of our own souls in

comparison to others seems not to be among them.  In his translation of

the Sermon at the Temple in 3 Nephi, chapter 14, the Prophet chose to

leave the Lord's words as they appear in the King James version of the

Sermon on the Mount, "Judge not, that ye be not judged" (V. 1).  Luke

phrases his version of the passage even more explicitly:



	Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

	Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall

not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:

	Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down,

and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. 

For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to

you again. [Luke 6:36-38]



	In the familiar passage that follows, the Lord reiterates his

message not to judge by explaining why we should not:



	And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but

considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

	Or how wilt thou say to thy brother: Let me pull the mote out of

thine eye--and behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

	Thou hypocrite, first cast the beam out of thine own eye; and then

shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother's eye. [3

Nephi 14:3-5]



In other words, our own sins, no matter how few or seemingly

insignificant, disqualify us as judges of other people's sins. if,

therefore, we wish to judge our associates, we might wisely observe the

Savior's advice to the Nephite Twelve:



	And know ye that ye shall be judges of this people, according to

the judgement which I shall give unto you, which shall be just. 

Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily, I say unto you,

even as I am. [3 Nephi 27:27]



Here the Lord links judgment with the individual doing the judging, and

concludes that only those who are like him can make his judgments.  In

the meantime, perhaps we would do better to cast ourselves as the

repentant prodigal rather than as the elder son and to sit weeping for

our own sins at the Lord's feet rather than to look over his shoulder

judging another's.  That we may do this, I pray, in the name of Jesus

Christ.  Amen.



                              THEM AND US



                            Elaine L. Jack



	Elaine L. Jack is the Relief Society general president of The

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, This fireside address was

delivered on 2 June 1991 in the Marriott Center.



	Once upon a time in a ward you know, a visitor attended on an

average Sunday.  It was a happy, pleasant ward, with great diversity. 

Children, youth, and adults of many ages sat together in sacrament

meeting.  The building seemed well kept, the leaders well organized,

the lessons well taught.  The visitor thought as she observed, "What

lucky people live in this ward.  What a warm, inviting place this must

be.  They must truly love one another." She decided to come again, not

to look but to listen to what these people said about their

relationships.



	This is what she heard the next Sunday.



	One Relief Society counselor said to the other, "I've decided our

singles bring their problems on themselves.  We reach out to them, but

they don't respond.  Sometimes I wish we didn't have so many in our

ward."



	One young adult asked another, "Don't you just hate Relief

Society? It is always so boring.  The women are all old, and they only

talk about married women's stuff."



	A grandmother said to her friend, "I hear they're reorganizing the

Primary.  I hope they don't call us.  We've raised our families.  It's

the young mothers' turn to work in Primary"



	The Laurel advisor told the Beehive advisor, "Since I have been in

Young Women, I feel Relief Society ignores me.  They've forgotten those

of us who aren't in class every Sunday."



	A recently returned missionary complained to his friend, "The

girls in this ward are the worst.  Why do they expect me to attend

Young Adult activities in this stake when the female population is so

bad?"



	The Primary president said to her counselor, "I wish they would

quit stealing our best teachers.  We just get them trained, and the

bishop gives them another calling."



	An elder who taught the gospel doctrine class told the Sunday

School president, "These manuals are awful.  What is wrong with the

people at Church headquarters?  Just because some areas of the world

are new to the gospel doesn't mean the rest of us should be stuck with

these outlines."



	A visiting teacher commented to her friend, "I can't believe the

new district they gave me.  Two of the women are my friends, and I feel

stupid giving them a spiritual message.  I don't even know the rest of

my district, so I really feel stupid trying to give a spiritual thought

to these strangers."



	The Relief Society president said to the bishop, "We work so hard,

and the sisters just don't appreciate it.  They don't seem interested. 

They don't even seem to care.  I don't feel the sisterhood in the

Relief Society I used to feel."



	The visitor left the ward feeling downhearted.  "Why?" she mused. 

"Why do these fine people label each other? Why do I hear so much talk

of 'them and us' and so little 'my sister and my brother'? Why do they

miss the joy of loving one another?"



	My dear sisters and brothers, I am that visitor, and I have asked

those questions many times as I've heard all those comments in wards

I've visited this past year.  Happily, in those same wards I've heard

and seen much of love and rejoicing in the restored gospel.  I never

return home that I don't thank our Heavenly Father for the good people

who populate this earth.  But to my dismay, the "them and us" mentality

is alive and well, pervasive and limiting.



Value the Individual



	This way of thinking and talking about each other hurts my soul. 

I'm concerned about the divisiveness it creates.  I'm concerned that so

often the Saints inadvertently label others in our ward families as

"them," somehow not like "us." Let me share an example of how some of

us lapse into "them and us" talk without even realizing it.



	Recently I visited with Relief Society leaders who have many

single women in their stake.  The Relief Society president began our

conversation by saying, "Sister Jack, our single women are a real

problem for us." What I noticed immediately was the labeling of all

single women as a problem.  But this good president did not realize

what she had said.  She continued, "I feel our singles bring so many of

their problems on themselves."



	I asked, "Have you talked with any of your sisters who are single

about their problems?"



	She said, "Well, no.  Not formally.  But the ward presidents bring

me reports, and I never feel very warm or good when I speak to them.  I

don't think they want to speak with me."



	"When have you spoken to these single sisters? Are any of them

your friends?" I queried.



	"Not really.  I do speak to singles at stake conference or at

stake leadership meeting.  But, as I said, that's always so

unsatisfying," she responded.



	I asked further, "Have you invited any of the singles in

leadership positions to discuss their points of view in your meetings

so all the sisters might get better acquainted with them?"



	"I have never thought of doing anything like that," she responded.



	My friends, do you get the point? This very conscientious

president does not know these sisters as individuals.  It's no wonder

she calls these sisters "them." Not one of them is her friend.  Not one

has been asked to participate in a meeting.



	Please consider this point for a moment.  Think about an

experience you've had when your first impression of someone changed

dramatically after you got acquainted.  Maybe you couldn't stand your

spouse when you first met.  Perhaps your bishop has become one of your

favorite people now that you've served together.  In some cases

roommates don't start off well--even missionary companions can be a

pain on occasion.  Yet, sharing experience and conversation can improve

the whole world, can't it?



	The Savior told us very directly, "If ye are not one ye are not

mine" (D&C 38:27).  There are some people I consider to be great souls. 

In every case these sons and daughters of God value the individual. 

They make it a point to get to know people--to be "one" with them.  Not

surprisingly, these great women and men tend to avoid making judgments

about others, or putting them in categories by religion, race, gender,

marital status, or age. I think both elements--loving others and

judging gently-are suggested by the Savior's direction to us.  When we

do love others, we can become one.  When we become one, we can be in

the Savior's fold.  It sounds so simple.  And I know well it can be

hard to do.  But, it can be done.



The View from Rameumptom



	For me, one of the most instructive stories in the Book of Mormon

is that of Alma the Younger's mission to the Zoramites.  In Alma 31 the

scripture records:



	Alma ... received tidings that the Zoramites were perverting the

ways of the Lord, . . . his heart again began to sicken because of the

iniquity of the people. [v. 1]



	And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead

the people to do that which was just--ye, it had had more powerful

effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else,

which had happened unto them--therefore Alma thought it was expedient

that they should try the virtue of the word of God. [v. 5]



	Now, when they [Alma and his missionary team] had come into the

land, behold, to their astonishment they found that the Zoramites had

built synagogues, and that they did gather themselves together on one

day of the week ... ; and they did worship after a i manner which Alma

and his brethren had never beheld; [v. 12] For they had a place built

up in the center of their synagogue, a place for standing, which was

high above the head; and the top thereof would only admit one person.

[v. 13]



	Therefore, whosoever desired to worship must go forth and stand

upon the top thereof, and stretch forth his hands towards heaven, and

cry with a loud voice, saying: [v. 14]



	Holy God, we believe that thou hast separated us from our

brethren; and we do not believe in the tradition of our brethren ... ;

but we believe that thou hast elected us to be thy holy children; and

also thou hast made it known unto us that there shall be no Christ. [v.

16]



	. . . and thou hast elected us that we shall be saved, whilst all

around us are elected to be cast by thy wrath down to hell; for the

which holiness, O God, we thank thee; and we also thank thee that thou

hast elected us, that we may not be led away after the foolish

traditions of our brethren, which doth bind them down to a belief in

Christ. [v. 17]



	Alma responded:



	Behold, O God, they cry unto thee, and yet their hearts are

swallowed up in their pride. Behold, O God, they cry unto thee with

their mouths, while they are puffed up, even to greatness, with the

vain things of the world. [v. 27] 



	O Lord God, how long wilt thou suffer that such wickedness and

infidelity shall be among this people? [v. 30]



	Two things strike me about this Rameumpton story.



	1. The Zoramites' prayer was such a complete perversion of the

Lord's most central teachings about love.  These Zoramites repeated

over and over their disbelief in the Savior while they extolled their

superiority to their neighbors.  It is significant that those two

apostate concepts appeared together.  First, they claimed no belief in

the Savior.  Second, they claimed to be apart from and better than

those around them.



	2. Alma was so concerned about his Zoramite brethren.  He prayed,

"O Lord, my heart is exceedingly sorrowful; wilt thou comfort my soul

in Christ" (Alma 31:31).  Alma brought them the best medicine available

to cure their spiritual illness.  He brought the word of God.



	One of the reasons I am always so distressed when I hear the

Saints talk about "our problems with singles" or "the irresponsible

youth of the Church" or "the difficulties with the aged" is that all

such comments reflect a distance from the word of God.  "Them and us"

talk like this distances us from each other, too.



	The Zoramites perverted correct worship by designing "a place for

standing" in the "center of their synagogue" (v. 13).  While we would

never create such a pulpit or entertain their false doctrine, do we

inadvertently enter a form of that Rameumpton when we speak of "them

and us," as if such artificial designations were in keeping with the

Lord's teachings? Do we ignore the word of God by judging each other

when we don't even know each other?



	We in Relief Society commonly hold focus groups as we travel. 

These are informal gatherings that allow us to hear from our sisters

throughout the world.  We generally sit in a circle and let our sisters

tell us what is on their minds and in their hearts.  One of our single

general board members recently reported the following episode.  A

sister about the same age as our board member said, "These single

women.  I am convinced they simply do not want the responsibilities of

children.  They don't get married because they take all their

satisfaction from a paycheck."



	I know well what is in the heart of this board member.  No one

could want a husband and family more than she.  She went up to our

sister after the meeting and said, "On behalf of the single women of

the Church, I want you to know I'd do anything to have your two

children, and I do not take satisfaction from my paycheck." Giving no

response, the other sister turned away and started talking to someone

else.



	My single friend was wounded and angry.  She fumed, "Elaine, what

our sister said was so untrue.  She must never have talked to a single

woman if she thinks that.  Why do we make false accusations about each

other?"



	It's a good question, isn't it? In fact, it's a lot like Alma's

question about the "wickedness and infidelity" of the Zoramites.  My

friend asked the kind of question that each of us might profitably ask

when obvious insensitivity and unkindness inflict pain.  Why do we do

things like that? I believe that as members of the Church we do not

intend to inflict pain on others.  I think generally our forays into

"them and us" talk and action come because of poor vision.



	In some cases we simply are blind to the feelings of brothers and

sisters close to us because we do not share their experience.  A woman

recently wrote me:



	As a single adult I feel I have been forgotten.  Perhaps you are

thinking that I should be more faithful, that by trusting in the Lord I

will overcome this feeling of being left out and not being cared about. 

Deep down inside there is a need in me that is not being filled.  When

I have spoken with those in leadership positions I am . . . forgotten

as soon as I have left the room because they are at a loss. I don't

think it is intentional. I think they are in a quandary.



	Sometimes when we're in a quandary, we don't know what to say or

do, so we turn away.  Lots of times that is the most hurtful thing we

can do.  A friend of mine says, "Disagree with me.  Speak to me curtly. 

But don't ignore me." I feel the same way.  When I talk with someone

else, I can learn.  I won't always fully understand.  I may not always

completely agree.  But I will always learn.  Sisters and brothers, let

us learn from each other by opening our eyes to other perspectives and

people.



	Sometimes "them and us" occurs because we lose sight of how good

we really are.  Then we may climb a step or two up that ladder to the

Rameumpton, thinking we'll have a better vista, hence, a clearer view. 

Instead we may create even greater distance between ourselves and our

neighbors.  One of the reasons the tragedy of the homeless Kurdish

people has been so gripping is that we've all seen so many pictures of

the faces of individuals.  Those men, women, and children are human

beings, our fellow travelers on earth.  We feel for each of them as we

witness their plight.  Think about the difference in your reactions to

photos taken from the air of the troops dropping food to those people

and the photos taken at ground level of individuals struggling to reach

that food.  My heart has always been touched by the pictures of the

one; the long distance shots of the many are much less personal to me.



	I think the difference is that opportunity to look eye to eye with

another person.  When we step up that Rameumpton ladder, we lose that

blessed chance to look at one person and see who she or he is.  Now I

know there are challenges to such personal interaction.  It can be

uncomfortable to be so " up close and personal." In certain cases we

just don't see eye to eye or even hear ear to ear with members of our

families, let alone members of our wards.  And, of course, everywhere

there live people who challenge us, sometimes verbally, sometimes

emotionally The temptation can be great to look away when we disagree

or feel hurt or don't like what someone says; to us.  I know.  I feel

those things, too.



	Yet, the Savior, who loves and understands each of us, teaches,

"Look unto me, and be ye saved" (Isaiah 45:22).



	Another reason we lapse into "them and us" is that we may get a

little disoriented and look in the wrong direction.  The prophet Jacob

explained that much of the trouble that came to the Jews was the result

of looking at the wrong target.  He wrote, "Wherefore, because of their

blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must

needs fall" (Jacob 4:14).  Moses set a fiery serpent upon a pole that

the children of Israel who had been bitten by serpents might look upon

it and live.  The solution was so simple.  All they had to do was look

in the right direction, but not all of them did (see Numbers 21:8).



	This looking and seeing is critical, my brothers and sisters.  We

can lose spiritual clarity in our vision in lots of ways.  Whether we

are blind to some experiences and feelings of others, forget how good

we are, or look beyond the mark, we are missing the big picture, and no

hike up to a Rameumpton erected in honor of "them and us" will refocus

our spiritual lenses.



	Remember what the Zoramites said when they climbed to their place

alone in the synagogue? We are different and better, and it is a

foolish tradition to believe in Christ.  What do we say when we start

up that same ladder? Things like: "I don't have anything in common with

parents of little children" or "I know the Savior said to love

everyone, but he didn't know my brother-in-law" or "Roommates are

impossible.  I've never had a good one."



"I Say unto You, Be One"



	When we choose to pattern our lives on the Savior's, that is, to

really try to love others and to see eye to eye with them, good comes. 

I recently returned from a trip to Australia and Tahiti.  Carol, my

general board traveling companion, and I were especially careful to

take luggage we could carry on the plane with us.  Neither of us could

think of anything worse than spending several days waiting for errant

bags to catch up with us.  When we arrived in Sydney, luggage in hand,

we joined the area presidency and their wives for a lunch overlooking

beautiful Sydney harbor.  We returned to the car to find it had been

broken into.  Carol's luggage--personal belongings, training materials,

books, everything--had been stolen.  She was left without purse or

scriptures, lipstick, or even a change of shoes.  All she had were the

clothes on her back.  Our fears had been of waiting two days for

luggage.  Now Carol faced three weeks on the road in Australia without

even a toothbrush.  This was a problem, especially for Carol.



	She called home to cancel some credit cards and told her family

that Wati Martin, the wife of Area President Douglas Martin, had

offered to help us get some toiletries and clothes.  Wati knew we had

only an hour to shop before the first series of meetings.  She whisked

us to a local mall, took us into the right stores, and in forty minutes

Carol had some toiletries, cosmetics, and one new outfit.



	When we got to the Martins' home late that night, Wati went

through her own closet, picking out blouses and other items she thought

Carol could use.  Thanks to her, by the next morning Carol had enough

clothes and sundries to get her by and a useful bag in which to carry

them.  Carol called home the next day to report that things were much

improved, and her family in Utah told her that a friend of Wati's had

heard about the theft already and called them to say, "Don't worry

about Carol.  Wati will take care of her." Nothing could have been more

correct.  Wati took us under her protective, loving wing and cared for

our needs.  In this case they included all the basics--food, shelter,

and clothing.



	Can you imagine how grateful we were to Wati and Elder Martin and

to the others who helped us turn a disaster into an experience of love

at its best?



	Word does travel fast in the Church.  I must also report that by

the time we reached Melbourne a sister arrived at the training meeting

with a pair of hose for Carol.  Women in Alice Springs offered money,

and everywhere we went, women assured Carol that they were confident

the thieves would benefit from exposure to her scriptures.



	In the weeks since I returned home, I've studied my scriptures,

looking for examples of what happens when people live their lives

according to our Savior's teachings about love.  Let me share a short

series of these, so you can hear from the prophets about how these

truly converted peoples lived.



	And Alma and Amulek went forth preaching repentance to the people.

. . .

	And as many as would hear their words, unto them they did impart

the word of God, without any respect of persons, continually.

	And . . . the establishment of the church became general

throughout the land, in all the region round about, among all the

people of the Nephites.

	And there was no inequality among them. [Alma 16:13-16]



	The Lamanites who became the Anti-Nephi-Lehites "began to be a

righteous people; and they did walk in the ways of the Lord" (Alma

25:14).  Ammon reported of them,



	We can witness of their sincerity, because of their love towards

their brethren and also towards us....

	. . . has there been so great love in all the land? Behold, I say

unto you, Nay, there has not, even among the Nephites....

	... And they were also distinguished for their zeal towards God,

and also towards men; for they were perfectly honest and upright in all

things. [Alma 26:31, 33; 27:27]



	Alma the Elder identified his people as "ye [who] are desirous to

come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing

to bear one another's burdens, that they may be light" (Mosiah 18:8).



	Of the people of Alma the scripture records, "And they did walk

uprightly before God, imparting to one another both temporally and

spiritually according to their needs and their wants" (Mosiah 18:29).



	The Lord called the people of Enoch "Zion, because they were of

one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no

poor among them" (Moses 7:18).



	After the Savior's visit, the people on the American continent

"had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and

poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the

heavenly gift" (4 Nephi 1:3).  Time passed, life went on, yet after one

hundred more years had passed away, the scriptures tell us:



	And it came to pass that there was no contention in the land,

because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.

	... and surely there could not be a happier people among all the

people who had been created by the hand of God. [4 Nephi 1:15-16]



	Finally, let me quote more of what I mentioned earlier that the

Savior said to us in this dispensation:



	And let every man [woman] esteem his [her] brother [sister] as

him[her]self, and practise virtue and holiness before me.

	. . . I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one, ye are not

mine.  [D&C 38:24, 27]



	Do you see a pattern? I do, and I am so grateful for these ideas:



		    1.	The people of God love him.



		    2.	They love each other.



		    3.	They are greatly changed by their love.



		    4.	They deal justly with one another.



		    5.	They hold all things in common.



		    6.	They are pure in heart.



		    7.	They live peacefully together.



	We could sit together and find dozens of other scriptures that

echo these messages.  Having heard these words of the prophets and of

the Lord himself, can you see why I am so distressed when I hear or

witness "them and us" in our language and our treatment of one another?

Simply stated, nothing is more destructive to our personal spiritual

growth than these small wedges we drive between us--and sometimes into

each other.



	How can we clarify our vision and become one?



	First, we must take off our blinders.  Recently a prominent family

in my neighborhood suffered a great tragedy.  Their troubled teenage

son committed suicide.  Under the influence of drugs and alcohol, he

apparently sought peace in this desperate way.  His fine family felt

his loss intensely.  Despite an enormous level of effort and outpouring

of love to this son throughout his life, his parents agonized,

wondering if they'd done everything.  His siblings probably wondered

the same.  Neighbors and friends, in and out of the Church, responded

with love, sympathy, and support.



	The family sat together at stake conference just days after this

tragic experience.  The main speaker, who knew of this incident, gave a

long talk about the problems families get into when they spend too much

time on Church duties and not enough time with each other.  Some

members of the congregation visibly winced as they thought of this

family and how the message might affect them.  Right message.  Wrong

time.  How we wished our speaker had taken off the blinders and seen

the needs of our brothers and sisters.



	This same sort of thing can happen in less dramatic ways.  A

bishop announces that all families are invited to the ward party. A

single man living alone might feel less than welcome.



	A Relief Society president invites sisters and their husbands to a

special homemaking event.  A recent widow withers a little, a newly

divorced mother withdraws.



	Sometimes our blinders limit our understanding of others. 

Sometimes they limit our understanding of ourselves.  Recently I

visited two of my sons in California.  On Saturday night I was sitting

in the car with a sleeping grandchild while they took care of some

Church business.  While I sat there right in front of the ward, I

watched a few people walk into the building.  I knew a single-adult

fireside would begin in about forty-five minutes, so I assumed these

early arrivals were in charge of the meeting.  A young man walked in

alone, and about ten minutes later he walked back out.  He had his

hands stuffed in his pants pockets and looked very alone.  I called to

him, "Hey, are you leaving before the meeting starts?"

 



	 He looked quite directly at me and responded, "Does it matter?"



	"Well, yes, it does.  I know you've got some guest speakers, and I

think you'd enjoy hearing them," I said.  I knew that two Relief

Society representatives would be speaking at that meeting.  I

encouraged him to stay and listen to them.  "Have you ever heard Sister

Okazaki or Sister Clark speak?" I asked.



	"No," he said, "And I won't tonight, either."



	My heart dropped as he walked off.  How I wished he could have

joined me for a few minutes so I could have learned more of him.  How I

wished he had felt at home.



	Blinders are good for horses.  They keep them looking straight

ahead at the road.  Blinders are not so good for people, for we must

look not only at the road ahead, but also at the sky above and into

each other's eyes.  My brothers and sisters, please remove your

blinders.



	It is not hard.  But it does require effort.  The great thing

about the scriptural examples I just read you is that they are all

real, and they point us in the right direction.  They tell us why

taking the blinders off is so useful; they also tell us how we will

know when we've been successful in our efforts to do so.  Most of all,

they repeat over and over this truth: Love is the greatest teacher of

all.



	When Christlike love becomes our main motivator, when we really

get serious about truly demonstrating our love for the Lord, good

things happen.  During this past year I have felt an increased need to

learn how to love others.  I have prayed many times that the Lord would

help me understand the many needs and circumstances of women throughout

the whole world.  In essence, I've been praying that the Lord would

help me remove any blinders.  I can testify to you that my prayers have

been answered.  I am different than I was before I received this

calling.  I am different now because I see more broadly, I love more

profoundly, and I feel gratitude more abundantly.  The Lord has been

good to me.  These insights have not come instantaneously, but they

have come as I have applied myself to prayerfully trying to love more

and understand better.  I continue to pray for greater wisdom and for

insight, thanking the Lord all the while for his goodness to each of

us.



	Second, to clarify our vision, we must think, and then act,

inclusively, not exclusively.  A Ricks College student recently said to

me, "You know, when President Bennion meets you on campus, he treats

you like he was your home teacher instead of the president of Ricks." I

cannot imagine a nicer tribute.  Truly Steve Bennion and so many others

know the art of making people feel valued, equal, loved.



	To learn to think and act inclusively requires thoughtfulness and

good old common sense.  A missionary I know recently wrote his family:



	We had a zone conference tonight.  It seems that some missionaries

from another district have been taking the meetings a little less

seriously than other people feel they should.  They were openly rebuked

for it, and it gave me some thoughts on the relationship we place

between the gospel and people.... It's so easy to notice that other

people do wrong and how we would do things differently.  Can you

imagine how different the world would be if that trend was reversed and

if we all noticed the positive of others and set these qualities as our

goal to work for rather than comparing ourselves to the negative?

[Letter from Elder Adam Wilcox to Marjean Wilcox]



	Yes, Elder Wilcox, I can imagine.  In fact, in my fondest dreams

we treat each other in the kind ways that heal and soothe the bruises

and rebuffs of life.  This wise young elder reminds us that if we will

acknowledge successes and think of ways to bring everyone in, rather

than emphasizing the errors or differences that leave some out, life

will be better all around.



	My grandmother used to say, "You can catch more flies with honey

than vinegar." I say, "Life ought to be a grand party with everyone

sitting around the same round table."



	Our Church experiences together should particularly be sources of

happiness and harmony.  When we're together, we should feel we belong. 

How did you feel when you arrived at the last ward party you attended?

Did you come alone? Did you dread entering the building because you

didn't know who you could sit by? Did you come with another friend? Did

you spend the whole time visiting with everyone in the room? Did you

leave feeling happy?



	Even our casual experiences together are something to ponder.  Do

we enter our chapels feeling and thinking inclusively? Do we come to

the party ready to help others feel they belong? As we spiritually

prepare for our Church assignments, do we ask the Lord to help us

understand those we are called to serve? Do we pray to love and

understand our family members? Our co-workers? Our neighbors? Our

roommates?



	Sisters and brothers, please think--then act--inclusively, that

all love may abound among us, despite our weaknesses, mistakes, and

spiritual distance from each other.



	Third, avoid offense.  A friend often quotes me this truth: "She

who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool.  He who takes

offense when offense is intended is usually a fool."



	The Golden Rule is a much underrated commandment, in my opinion. 

The Savior said on both continents on which he ministered, "Therefore,

all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so

to them, for this is the law and the prophets" (3 Nephi 14:12).  This

simple injunction could make life happier for thousands.  I mean

it--you probably deal with thousands of people annually who could be

blessed if you took this commandment to heart, head, and tongue.



	Now, to avoid offense, we must be serious about neither giving it

nor taking it.  We will always have to deal with thoughtless people. 

Sometimes our own lack of experience makes us insensitive when we would

intend to be otherwise.  Some days are so busy, and because we're tired

or in a hurry, we speak before we think.  Unquestionably, opportunities

to give and take offense are plentiful.



	I suggest, however, that you never intentionally litter the lives

of your associates with offenses.  And don't pick up an offense when

others drop it.  This is your mother speaking: Don't pick it up!



	I know a woman of Mexico who joined the Church, the only person in

her family to do so.  She subsequently went on a mission, did graduate

work at BYU, and took a responsible position in government.  To take

this job meant a move, so off she went to a new community where she had

no friends. The first week in her new, suburban, North American, family

ward, she introduced herself to the bishop.  He promptly responded with

a calling to serve in the ward library and with a husband and wife to

serve as her home and visiting teachers.



	Because she was so new to the ward, she felt she should have been

called to serve in a position that would let her mingle with the ward

members.  She said nothing to the bishop, but she resented being asked

to serve in such an isolated environment as the library Weeks came and

went, and she got angrier and angrier about what she felt was a real

slap in the face from an insensitive bishop.



	About the time she got up a good boil about her Church job, her

home/visiting teachers called.  They were elderly, the husband

explained.  They had often come by to visit, but she was never home. 

He complained that he could never get her on the phone and told her she

should have bought an answering machine months ago, if she expected him

to ever check on her.



	He continued: His knees were bad--so were his wife's--and they

would no longer climb the three flights of stairs to her apartment.  If

she wanted them to come, she'd have to call them first.



	After that phone conversation, she got up a really fine head of

steam.  "These Anglos," she thought.  "Who do they think they are?

First, they shove me in a closet at the ward, then they offend me by

expecting me to meet their schedule.  I'll show them.  I just won't

come at all." True to her word, she stopped going to church.  All

because well meaning people dropped offense.



	Now she could have disposed of that offense in several ways.  She

could have picked up the ugly thing and thrown it in the garbage.  She

could have asked, "What is the intent of their actions and words"

before she heated to such a hard boil.  She might have stepped over the

offense, laughing at the difficulty all of us have sometimes as we try

to communicate.  She could have explained her needs to the bishop in

the first place.  She could have chosen a street-level location to meet

the home/visiting teachers.  She could have counseled with an

understanding friend.  She could have stomped and fumed until she was

able to turn the heat off and let her feelings simmer down.  She could

have said, "This is my Church, too, and no one will drive me out of it

no matter what they do or say" She could have determined to be more

understanding so she never did something similar to others.  She could

have done a lot of things.  Most of all, I wish she had never taken

offense in the first place.



	A friend of mine recently came to visit, looking like the loser of

a twelve-round prize fight.



	"What is wrong?" I asked, as she burst into tears.  The trouble

was that one of her neighbors had lambasted her repeatedly over a

matter concerning their daughters, who were best friends.  It seems my

friend's daughter had offended the neighbor's daughter, and the

neighbor had marched right over and let my friend have it.  What

offended her was first being treated as if she were responsible for her

daughter's comments and finally being talked to as if she were a child

herself.



	My friend said, "Elaine, it's bad enough to have such an

unpleasant encounter once, but she won't let it go.  She's talked to me

four times about the same trouble, even though the girls have forgotten

the whole episode.  What should I do?"



	My answer: "Bob and weave."



	"What do you mean?" my confused friend asked.



	I suggested, "Don't take offense at this.  Isn't this the same

neighbor who was so angry when your son cracked her kitchen window with

a baseball? He paid for the damage, but she insisted on telling you

several times how distressed she was.  After she'd vented her feelings,

she was fine.



	"She apparently needs to vent when she's angry, and it seems she

doesn't get it all out the first time.  Just because she needs to say

it more than once doesn't mean you have to stand there like a punching

bag waiting for her to hit you again.  Don't stand there

flatfooted--keep moving.  Bob and weave like champion prize fighters. 

They don't just stand in one place when someone approaches  with boxing

gloves on.  They take some initiative, and so should you.  Write her a

nice note explaining your feelings.  Invite them over for a family

picnic.  Go shopping  together. Tell her the next good joke you hear. 

Bake her some brownies and take them to her while they're still warm. 

Pour her a nice glass of milk, and when she takes that first mouthful,

hurry and explain how much you'd like to be her friend.  Then treat her

as if she were your best friend.  No matter what she does, keep moving. 

Do what you can, maintain a sense of humor, then let it go."



	Having received this counsel from another friend when I was a

young mother, I know it's sound.  I share it with all of you.  Take

initiative, do good, enjoy humor.  And, please, avoid offense.



	My friends, "them and us" are not the words the Lord uses to talk

about us.  He has called us his children, his friends, his sheep, his

lambs.  He has admonished us to be one with each other, to follow the

pattern he and his Father have set for us.



	May we do so.  The prophet Isaiah wrote, "They shall see eye to

eye when the Lord shall bring again Zion" (3 Nephi 16:18).  May we work

to see eye to eye, may we become one as we treat and speak of each

other as the sons and daughters of God, sisters and brothers in the

gospel of Jesus Christ, I pray, in the sacred name of Jesus Christ. 

Amen.



                             "TAKING SWEET

                               COUNSEL"

                           J. Bonner Ritchie



     J. Bonner Ritchie is a professor of organizational behavior at

     Brigham Young University.  This devotional address was given on 25

     June 1991 in the Wilkinson Center Ballroom.



	I appreciate the opportunity to share some ideas with you and

would like to invite you to explore with me some ways of applying

gospel truth.  I prefer to define this process as exploring avenues of

application rather than as a mere erudite academic inquiry.  The

kingdom of God is not a spectator sport.  It is an action process

requiring learning, commitment, and a special kind of understanding in

order to translate truth into action.  So I ask you to engage in that

process--exploring ways of applying gospel truths.



Organizations and Relationships



	As a focus for our discussion, I would like to emphasize one

important area of gospel truth.  Of the many ways to define the purpose

of the gospel, let me suggest one for your consideration--the idea of

the gospel as a mechanism that (1) defines the meaning of certain

organizations, and (2) establishes a set of criteria for quality

relationships within those organizations.  Now, if this sounds

suspiciously close to my academic field, it is.  But after all, what

else is there besides people behaving, relating, making mistakes,

learning, changing, growing?



	We have many scriptures and pronouncements from prophets that

emphasize the significance of a series of organizations: the family,

the neighborhood, the community, the state, the occupational world, the

Church, and, ultimately, the kingdom of heaven.  The value of the

individual is defined and worth is measured in terms of the quality of

the relationships we develop in each of these organizational settings:

husband and wife, parent and child, individual and neighbor, individual

and community, individual and state, individual and occupational

setting, individual and the Church, and, finally, individual and God. 

The principle and ordinances of the gospel are geared not indirectly,

but directly, to teaching us what it takes to develop quality

relationships in each of these settings.  The degree to which we attain

those quality relationships is a determinant of our place in the

kingdom of God.



Counseling with God



	I would like to suggest as a text the book of Psalms, where David,

reflecting on the challenge of reconciliation with God, cries and

struggles as he attempts to escape the consequences of his behavior. 

In the Twenty-third Psalm David pleads for solace, peace, safety, and

protection, but in the Fifty-fifth Psalm he attempts to redefine his

relationship with God.  In his appeal, he expresses the wish "Oh that I

had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest"

(Psalms 55:6).  Of course he found he could not.  He couldn't hide.  It

wasn't like a military encounter, where he could prove himself by

leading the armies of Israel.  He had to come to terms with himself. 

He had to accept God's definition of a quality relationship both with

others (some of whom he had mistreated) and, most significantly, with

God.  In so doing, he described God as "a man mine equal"--an

interesting term--as an acquaintance, as a guide, as a friend (see

Psalms 55:13).  Then he used a metaphor that I find extremely

compelling.  He said, in reference to God, "We took sweet counsel

together, and walked unto the house of God in company" (Psalms 55:14).



	In the quest to take sweet counsel with God--or with a friend,

superior, subordinate, enemy, student, teacher, parent, or child--what

are we describing? What is the nature of this interaction? What do you

need to do to prepare yourself to reach that level of sweet counsel in

your relationships? Both parties in a reciprocal relationship need to

do a series of things in order to have sweet counsel rather than bitter

counsel as the criterion of the relationship.



	As I reflect on many of my students over the years, I am not sure

that all of them would regard as sweet counsel the responses I gave to

papers or to comments in class.  I may intend to give sweet counsel,

but it doesn't always come out that way.  I have tested this

empirically with my children, and they do not regard all of my counsel

as sweet.  My colleagues do not see all of my comments as sweet

counsel.  Neither does my wife.  One time I gave a talk on leadership,

and at the conclusion of the talk, an individual who had been in the

Ann Arbor ward where I served as bishop came up to me and said, "You

talk a lot better than you behave." I have the sweet counsel theory

down, but it doesn't always translate into behavior.  We need to

understand what it takes to apply this important principle.  For many

of us, that may require some changes.



	Sweet counsel first requires trust.  Counsel is never sweet unless

a relationship has been developed in advance that identifies the love,

the care, the commitment, and the concern that transcends bureaucratic

encounters, or that transcends an explosion of anger when something

goes wrong.  For example, it is not useful to tell people that God is

disappointed in their behavior unless they care about God.  Until they

trust that God's love is something significant and important in their

lives, they won't be interested in obeying God's commandments.  Unless

people have a desire to grow, to learn, and to change-counsel is not

sweet.  Only when both parties bring to the encounter a commitment to

explore feelings honestly is it likely to be sweet counsel.



	The counseling process is often troublesome.  Listen to these two

scriptures from the Book of Mormon.  Jacob wrote, "Wherefore, brethren,

seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand.  For

behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in wisdom, and in

justice, and in great mercy" (Jacob 4:10).  As Alma was instructing his

son Helaman, he said, "Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings" (Alma

37:37).  Notice the emphasis: Do not seek to counsel the Lord, but

counsel with the Lord.  There is a difference.



	We do not receive counsel from God until we are prepared to engage

in counsel with him.  Do you remember the following plea?



	O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy

hiding place?

	How long shall thy hand be stayed, and thine eye, yea thy pure

eye, behold from the eternal heavens the wrongs of thy people and of

thy servants, and thine ear be penetrated with their cries ?

	Yea, O Lord, how long shall they suffer these wrongs and unlawful

oppressions, before thine heart shall be softened toward them, and thy

bowels be moved with compassion toward them? [D&C 121:1-3]



This was Joseph Smith crying out his honest feelings from Liberty Jail. 

His cries preceded one of the sweetest, tenderest, and most poignant

instructions regarding human relationships and leadership ever given. 

This was Joseph Smith honestly and emotionally counseling with God--not

telling God what he should do in a programmatic sense, but telling God

how he felt.  God seldom acts without that counsel, without that honest

expression of an individual in need.



	Recall Christ's plea: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this

cup pass from me" (Matthew 26:39).  And then his cry: "My God, my God,

why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46).  This is not a weak sinner

struggling with reconciliation, but rather a perfect individual

expressing his feelings.  If Christ had those feelings and felt it

relevant to express them to God, what are your feelings that must

precede the sweet counsel between you and God?



	The preparation for counsel is a process of asking.  This is a

dynamic, not a passive process.  It is not "Lord, what should I do?" or

"Who should I marry?" or "What major should I select?" or "Where should

we move?" Whenever people have engaged in this type of asking, the

response has been rather clear:



	Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would

give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.

	But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your

mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will

cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel

that it is right. [D&C 9:7-8]



In this attempt to simply ask for the translation of the Book of

Mormon, an important lesson was taught: Revelations don't just follow

questions, they follow proposals.  They follow proactive behavior on

the part of individuals who care enough to study, who care enough to

trust, and who care enough to formulate proposals.  These people may

even ask if "God has forgotten them" or if he has gone to sleep (see

Psalms 10:11; 42:9).  The issue is to communicate the intensity of the

concern and to propose alternative actions.



	Does God need to know how we feel, or do we need to be humble

enough to express how we feel? First, we need to determine how we feel. 

There is no sweet counsel without honest self-examination and

assessment.  The human mind is a most remarkable instrument of

self-deception that may suppress our true feelings.  Honest inquiry

requires analysis, criticism, perspective, and a genuine statement of

feelings.  And if it is important to express these feelings to God, who

knows us well, it is even more critical to express them to each other.



	We need honest expression, but that only comes after careful

self-inquiry and perhaps tears.  Almost all revelation starts with a

prophet crying unto the Lord, pleading, sometimes criticizing--not

telling God what to do, but saying, "God, maybe I don't understand very

well.  If you understood the situation the way I do, you would surely

take action.  Help me understand." The difference between counseling

God and counseling with God is that when we counsel God, we tell him

how he should run the Church or the world.  When we counsel with him,

we tell him how we feel, and then he responds after we trust him enough

to have an honest relationship.



Counseling with Each Other



	Now, let us move from sweet counsel with God to sweet counsel with

each other.  In dealing with each other, we can learn many lessons from

the way God expects us to deal with him, and from the way he deals with

us.  The fact that we may not be perfect yet shouldn't deter us from

striving for sweet counsel.



	When we deal with each other, however, there are many potential

dangers.  In Ecclesiastes 8:9 we read, "There is a time wherein one man

ruleth over another to his own hurt." There is great danger in a

relationship when power is seen only as a means to rule or to gain

control.  Of the scriptures I read that have foreboding consequences

for those who abuse relationships, section 121 of the Doctrine and

Covenants is the most poignant for me: "Amen to the priesthood or the

authority of that man" (v. 37).



	We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and

disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority,

as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous

dominion.

	Hence many are called, but few are chosen.

	No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of

the priesthood. [D&C 121:39-41]



Many are called to serve, to learn, and to grow.  Many are given

opportunities.  Of those many who are called, why are so few chosen?

Why do so few avoid the pitfalls and traps that come in relationships

as we give bitter counsel, rather than sweet? We all need to carefully

consider those situations where our well-intended administrative

behavior results in abuse or exploitation.  As an example, how many of

the following words do you use in describing leadership, authority,

power, influence, and management?



òonly by persuasion

òlong-suffering

ògentleness

òmeekness

òlove unfeigned

òkindness

òpure knowledge

òwithout hypocrisy

òwithout guile

òreproving only when inspired, then showing increasing love

òcharity towards all

òvirtue garnishing thoughts unceasingly

[See D&C 121:41-45]



	These are the characteristics that lead to sweet counsel in

administrative and personal relationships.



	In the process of trying to develop these characteristics, we can

use another analogous word.  I think it is fortuitous that we spell

"counsel" with an "-sel" and with a "-cil." The Lord's answer to the

exploitation that "almost all" will be subject to in administrative and

bureaucratic relationships is found in the concept of a council.



The Concept of a Council



	A council is instituted as the dominant unit of organization in

the Church.  The highest unit in the Church is referred to very

explicitly: the Council of the First Presidency.  Councils exist at

every organizational level of the Church and, most important, are

supposed to exist at the family level as family council.



	Some time ago I was asked to write a section in the new

Encyclopedia of Mormonism on councils.  I wrote that the concept of a

council in the Church is both an administrative unit and a philosophy

of administrative behavior.  The administrative units are clear: a ward

council, a high council, the Council of the Twelve, the First

Presidency.  If employed properly, councils prevent the exercise of

unrighteous dominion.  Used as an administrative guideline or principle

in church or in any other administrative, leadership, or relationship

context, councils prevent bitter counsel and create sweet counsel.



	For example, why did we have a council in heaven? Why did we not

just have an assembly or meeting in heaven? Why not have a committee?

If God is omniscient, why does he need a council? Consider the

following scriptures, which provide a glimpse of divine councils:



	"[Actions are taken] according to that which was ordained in the

midst of the Council of the Eternal God of all other gods" (D&C

121:32).



	"And the Gods said among themselves: On the seventh time we will

end our work, which we have counseled" (Abraham 5:2).  "The Gods took

counsel among themselves" (Abraham 4:26).



	"And this shall be your business and mission in all your lives, to

preside in council" (D&C 90:16).



	The presidency of the high priesthood is the "highest council of

the church" (D&C 107:80).



	It is the duty of the president of every priesthood quorum to "sit

in council" with members of that quorum (see D&C 107:85-90).



	On one occasion, Church leaders were sent to Missouri to implement

a plan for taking care of the poor--a plan necessary for individuals of

the Church to achieve salvation.  The scripture says, "Let my servant

Newel K. Whitney and my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and my servant

Sidney Rigdon sit in council with the saints which are in Zion" (D&C

78:9).  The cost of not doing so was that leaders, members, and the

Church would fail to achieve their objectives.



	Why did these objectives need to be achieved in a council, rather

than in other bureaucratic forms of organization? President Joseph E

Smith stated, "In the midst of counsel there is wisdom" (GD, p. 130). 

And in his first sermon after being sustained as President of the

Church, he said,



	I propose that my counselors and fellow presidents in the First

Presidency shall share with me in the responsibility of every act which

I shall perform in this capacity.  I do not propose to take the reins

in my own hands and do as I please, but I propose to do as my brethren

and I agree, and as the spirit of the Lord manifests to us. . . . The

Lord never did intend that one man should have the power. [GD, pp.

176-771



	The definition of autocracy is a government where all power

resides in the sovereign ruler.  That ruler may be benevolent, like

Benjamin, or evil, like Hitler-but the ruler decides everything.  The

power resides in the sovereign, in the dictator, in the king.



	In a democracy, power resides in the people.  People vote.  They

may not vote righteously, they may not vote to do the best thing, but

the power resides in the people.  In a council, the primary means of

decision making is not a vote--instructions are explicit, decisions are

unanimous.  And in a council, rather than power residing in the

sovereign ruler or in the voice of the people, power resides in truth. 

Truth can only be found by an honest exchange of committed people, and

when values transcend bottom-line outcomes.



	I think it is interesting that in the Council of Heaven, God

listened to alternative proposals and allowed people to choose.  I

often rhetorically ask the question "If God is such a good teacher and

such a good leader, how come he lost a third of his followers?" For

those who measure organizational effectiveness in terms of universal

attainment of a single standard, I would recommend God as a leader. 

For him, principle is more important than performance.  Freedom of

choice and honoring the right of others to speak in the council, even

though they may not have supported the plan, was more important than

universal salvation.  Of course there is an implicit contradiction

here, because universal salvation can never be forced.  In his councils

God taught that the process of honoring every individual and their

right to choose, unimpeded by manipulative good intent of obsessive

administrators, is of the highest value.



	It is this process that is most important.  This higher principle

of administration is learned in a council.  It is not learned in

bureaucracies, in kingdoms, in autocracies, or even in democracies.  In

councils we learn the correct principle that no one person is good

enough to take full responsibility for the decision making or the

outcome.  But even if one leader does have consistent success, there is

another problem.  When we take full responsibility for the outcome, and

when that outcome is good, there is an arrogance of power that corrupts

the process by which future decisions will be made.



	For example, it is never a bishop's ward.  It is never a parent's

family.  Ownership undercuts equality and shared responsibility. 

Councils teach that we should have honest expression of feelings and

not phony facades that seem to conform to a bureaucrat's or leader's

definition of goodness.  An honest expression of doubt can be made with

a reciprocal agreement that those who hear it will honor it and will

not punish those struggling to apply truth in a way that may not be

shared or understood by others.



	In a council we organize to accomplish objectives.  Even if truth

is understood by a perfect leader, decisions on implementation are not

given by virtue of the truth pronounced.  The original decision,

understanding of relevant facts, and implementation of assignments must

be agreed upon by the people.  Those in a council have to verbally and

visibly commit themselves to the project or the program that the

council chooses.  The commitment requires participation,

acknowledgment, and action.  That does not happen with just an

executive pronouncement.



	In research that I did some years ago, I learned that half of the

decisions made in the corporate world are never implemented.  Some of

them are bad decisions and shouldn't be implemented anyway, but some

are good decisions that should be carried out.  But in the absence of

commitment on the part of the implementors, it is an exercise in

futility.  If there is doubt as to the commitment, then there needs to

be understanding and teaching prior to the continuance of the process.



	Another issue deals with the simple decisions of organization. 

Roles must be assigned, rules delineated, and procedures and criteria

for a particular activity decided.  In the council setting, people

agree that other people are important and everyone must understand what

is being decided.  Unilateral decision making does not fit a council. 

It may get things done, but it undercuts God's purposes.  We should

learn to tolerate those we disagree with, and to honor them, as God

demonstrated in his councils.  We must learn not to honor sin, but to

honor people attempting to understand and apply truth.  And in the

event of a mistake, we still can learn.



	It is instructive that the most telling and sensitive scriptures

follow the most emotionally distraught expressions to God, such as

previously mentioned in the hundred and twenty-first section.  Karl

Barth said, "He who takes the role of counseling must be prepared to be

counseled in turn by his brother, otherwise he attempts too much and

becomes a lawgiver.  That should be reserved to God."



	As we learn the lessons from councils, as we learn that sweet

counsel can only be given in a council, as we prepare relationships

that enable us to grow and experiment without fear, and as we test

without sanction and learn with confidence, we will find ourselves

creating organizations that are modeled on God's councils.  It is not

an easy task; it is a very difficult process.  We must learn that

principles are more important than control, that honest feelings are

more important than smooth facades, and that understanding new

information benefits the individual expressing it as well as the

receiver.



	By participating in organizations we decide who we are and who we

are going to become.  If we do not have a council, we increase the risk

of becoming victims of the decision-making process, leaving us both

cynical and resentful.  We will fight back, we will be abused, and will

likely abuse others.  As leaders and followers, the only protection

from these negative side effects is an understanding of the council as

a form of organization with sweet counsel as the criterion of

interpersonal exchange.



That We Might Find Sweet Counsel



	In the final analysis, the only things that last, the only things

that stay with us throughout eternity, are knowledge and relationships. 

We especially need knowledge of God's organizations and an awareness of

how human organizations can either get in the way or facilitate God's

purposes.



	I've been at BYU a long time, and as I look around, I don't always

find the ideal of sweet counsel among teachers, students, or

administrators.  One reason I do not find it is because we are not

perfect.  But sometimes, I'm afraid, we don't even want it.  I hope

that we will want God's form of organization and learning--even if

we're not quite prepared, even if some of us have short-term explosions

that turn the counsel bitter.



	The relationships we develop will only last if they are predicated

on the sweet counsel that eliminates the abuse and unrighteous dominion

we are warned of.  I pray that you and I might find within us the

capacity to translate theology and understanding into sweet counsel. 

In each of the relationships in which we participate--with superiors,

with subordinates, in occupational settings, in the university setting,

in our homes, and in our church--may we find the way to engage in sweet

counsel.



	I bear testimony that it is worth it.  I bear testimony that the

Church has within it the mechanism to teach and bring us to God; that

our leaders, while human, also need support; and that we need to do

what we can do both as followers and as leaders to create an

environment where, as David cried, we may take sweet counsel together

and walk unto the house of God in company.  I say this in the name of

Jesus Christ.  Amen.



                             LIVE TO MAKE

                             GOOD MEMORIES

                           George I. Cannon



     George I. Cannon is a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy

     of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This fireside

     address was given on 4 August 1991 in the Marriott Center.



	Good morning, my friends.  You are an inspiring and magnificent

sight. What an honor it is to be here.  I feel most humble in this

assignment and seek for the Spirit of the Lord to direct me as I share

some thoughts I hope will be helpful.



	I would like to ask you to walk with me down memory lane for a few

minutes.  It was a little over fifty-four years ago that I registered

as a freshman at Brigham Young University.  The student body numbered

1,935. I was seventeen years of age.  It was my first experience living

away from home.  I lived with my cousin Heber, who was a sophomore.  We

rented a bedroom in a home between the upper and lower campuses.  My

sister Jean, who was a senior, lived with a friend in an apartment

close by. We ate breakfast and dinner together and shared in preparing

the meals.  My sister was a home economics major.  She and my cousin

would cook one week, and the next week her friend, who was a drama

major, and I would prepare the meals. When Jean and Heber cooked, we

had great meals.  When Veon and I cooked, we had lots of dry cereal and

fruit salad.



	Those days at the Y were challenging, growing, exciting days.  I

earned twenty-five cents an hour serving as the accompanist for the

male chorus, directed by Dr. Franklin Madsen.  I have had many

opportunities to return to the Y, and always there is a flood of good

memories.  I had lots of butterflies when I came to school.  There were

times of homesickness and loneliness.  It was a time of learning how to

learn and to be on my own.



	I appreciated the good professors, the fine administrative

leaders, and the genuine interest they had in us as students.



	There were great matinee dances on Wednesday afternoons.  I don't

know if they are still part of the Y, but they were lots of fun.  There

were the Tuesday devotionals and Friday assemblies in College Hall.



	It took me ten years to graduate.  After my sophomore year I

served a mission.  I returned for one quarter to "batch" with three

returned missionaries from the Eastern States Mission.  Then came the

call from Uncle Sam to serve in the Air Force.  My four-year tour of

duty was mainly in North Africa and Italy.  After the war I felt I

needed to start earning a living and building a career.  I lived at

home in Salt Lake City, carried a full schedule at the University of

Utah, and worked half a day. After a year of work and school, I needed

some more credit to graduate from BYU, so I asked my boss if I could

have a leave of absence to attend summer school at the Y. He said, "I

think it's a good idea, and while you are there, I suggest you look for

a wife." During summer school I began to date a wonderful girl by the

name of Isabel Hales, who was doing some graduate work.  At the end of

the summer she went to Chicago to study.  I was able to convince her to

come home after a few months, and in June we were married in the Salt

Lake Temple.  To marry Isabel Hales was the best decision I ever made. 

I will always be grateful to BYU for helping me find her.



	Those were meaningful and fulfilling days.  I owe so much to those

who made it possible for me to come to the Y and to all of those who

were a part of my life during those formative years.



	Elder Richard L. Evans, who was a member of the Quorum of the

Twelve and author of the "Spoken Word" for over forty years, wrote the

following:



	O beloved young friends.  Remember life is forever.  But youth

doesn't last very long.  Live it to make memories that will bless the

whole length of your life.



	I would like to paraphrase the words of Elder Evans and say to you

tonight,



	O beloved young friends, remember life is forever.  But these

important years--right now--do not last very long, but they are so very

important.  Live to make good memories that will bless the whole length

of your life.



	My message to you tonight is, "Live to make good memories." To

help you do this, I would like to share with you four L's.



1. Like Yourself



	The first L I would like to share with you as you live to make

good memories is to Like Yourself.



	Twenty-four years ago I served as a mission president in England. 

Before each missionary would go home I had the opportunity of

interviewing the missionary and asking what he or she was taking home

as a result of their mission experience.  I didn't want to know what

was in their suitcase, but what was inside of them.



	One elder said to me, "I am going home liking myself."



	I said to him, "What do you mean by that?"



	He said, "All my life I have wanted to be someone else.  I was

envious of the guy at high school who was the most popular one with the

girls.  I wanted to be him.  I wanted to own that red Chevy one of the

fellows had at school.  I wanted to be the quarterback on the football

team.  When I came into the mission field I wanted to be the assistant

to the president or that elder who could always quote the right

scripture at the right time.  I was always wishing I was somebody else. 

However, as I have served these two years, I have come to realize who I

really am.  I have a good relationship with my Savior and with my

fellowmen.  I have a greater love for my parents and family.  I realize

I have talents I can develop and share and that others have their

talents.  I am grateful for what I have been given.  I am no longer

envious of what others have that I may not have.  I am going home

feeling good about myself."



	I, too, had a good feeling about this elder and what was inside of

him.  How happy I was that he had come to appreciate himself and make

that part of his life's philosophy.  Over the years it has been a joy

to see how this young man has developed and matured as he shared

himself and his talents with others.



	In section 46 of the Doctrine and Covenants, verses 11 and 12, are

these words of the Savior:



	For all have not every gift given unto them; for there are many

gifts, and to every man is given a gift by the Spirit of God.

	To some is given one, and to some is given another, that all may

be profited thereby.



	Jules Feiffer wrote a humorous article entitled "Be Yourself." It

contains some good advice.



	Ever since I was a little kid, I didn't want to be me.

	I wanted to be Billie Widdleton, and Billie Widdledon didn't even

like me.

	I walked like "he" walked--I talked like "he" talked--

	I signed up for the high school "he" signed up for.

	Which was when Widdledon changed.  He began to hang around Herby

Vandeman.  He mixed me up!  I began to walk and talk like Billie

Widdledon, walking and talking like Herby Vandeman!

	And then it dawned on me that Herby Vandeman walked and talked

like Joey Haverlin . . .

	And Joey Haverlin walked and talked like Corky Sabison!

	So here I am, walking and talking like Billie Widdledon's

imitation of Herby Vandeman's version of Joey Haverlin, trying to walk

and talk like Corky Sabison!

	And who do you think Corky Sabison is always walking and talking

like?

	Of all people--Dopey Wellington--that little pest who walks and

talks like me!

	I have a younger brother.  His name is Stan.  He is a university

graduate in engineering who can fix and build anything.  When I took

some aptitude tests in college to get some vocation suggestions, the

person giving the test said, "One area you should not go into is

engineering." He was right.  I have none of that ability.  When I try

to fix our plumbing I have to call a plumber in to correct all the

mistakes I have made.  I appreciate and love my brother, but I am not

envious of him.  I am grateful for his many talents, and he is very

generous in sharing his talents around our house.  As someone once

said, "A bee may not be an eagle, but it can sure make honey."



	It is important to like ourselves and be ourselves.  Often when I

talk to the youth of the Church, I ask them to look at their thumbs.  I

ask them what's unusual about their thumbs.  Eventually they tell me

that they are the only one who has that thumb. Of all the billions who

have lived on the earth or who will live on the earth, no one else will

have a thumb exactly like yours.  Would you look at yours for just a

moment? Doesn't that tell you how important and significant you are? If

you ever get discouraged and are feeling sorry for yourself, take a

good look at your thumb, and then you can say, "I am special." No one

else has my thumb, and no one else ever will.  My wife has a fancy

plaque on our refrigerator door.  It is not good English, and you would

flunk if you wrote it for your English professor, but it contains a

message I think that makes it okay: "I'm me--I'm wonderful--'cause God

don't make junk!"



	You and I need to accept the responsibility to make our thumb the

best we can.  We are responsible for it.  In the mission field we had a

wonderful sister missionary, a convert to the Church from France, who

used to put notes on my desk to cheer me up. One day I found this note. 

I believe it is a Hindu proverb:



	There is nothing noble in being superior to some other man.  The

true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.



	President McKay, at one of his last conference addresses, gave

this counsel to the youth of the Church:



	Our body will not fulfill its purpose--it cannot--without that

life-giving something within which is the offspring of Deity as eternal

as (your) Father in Heaven. . . .that spirit within you, young man,

young woman, is the real you.  What you make of yourself depends upon

you as an individual.  You are in this world to choose the right or the

wrong--to accept the right or yield to temptation.



	What a wonderful and important responsibility each of us has for

our own thumb--to make it the very best thumb we can and to like that

thumb.



	One other thought I would share concerning your thumb is learning

how to make the best use of it.  Some people put their thumbs up and

are only interested in what they can get for themselves.  "What is in

it for me?" is an expression we hear much too often.  Someone has said,

"The smallest package in all the world is someone who is all wrapped up

in himself." That isn't the way to use that thumb.  Turn it over and

use it as a thumb that shares--use your thumb to make others' lives

happier and better.



	Dr. Albert Schweitzer, an exemplar of Christian service, shared

this thought as he was addressing a graduating class:



	I do not know where all of you are going, and I certainly do not

know what you will do with your lives, but let me tell you simply this: 

unless you set aside some portion of your lives to help and serve

others less fortunate than yourself, then your lives will not really be

happy. [Quoted by Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh, D.S.C., commencement

address, 1979, University of Utah]



	The Savior has told us if we will lose ourselves [in service] we

will find ourselves.



	I encourage you to live to make good memories by liking yourself.



2. Learn from Others



	The second L is Learn from Others.  Many years ago I heard a

statement that has been helpful to me.  I don't know, who said it, but

I am glad they did.  It goes like this: "Wise men learn from

experience, but super wise men learn from others' experience."



	Do you believe in that? I certainly do.  What a great opportunity

you and I have to learn and grow from the experience of others.  I will

share a few thoughts from special people in my life that have been

helpful to me and I hope will be to you.



	One of the wisest men I have known in my life was Wayne B. Hales. 

He served for forty-one years as a member of the BYU faculty.  He was

an outstanding scientist, effective administrator, inspiring Church

leader, and a devoted husband, father, and grandfather.  He served

eighteen years as a bishop and stake president.  He was the first stake

president on the BYU campus for married couples.  President Bunker told

me that he and his wife went to President Hales for their interviews

when they were preparing to go to the temple to be married.  Brother

Hales and his wife, Belle, were great contributors to BYU and left a

marvelous legacy for all of us.  To me, one of the most important

contributions this couple made was to have a daughter named Isabel.



	When President Hales was asked by one of his bishops to give what

would be a good philosophy of life for his ward members, he wrote a

statement for the bishop.  I am going to ask his daughter, Isabel, if

she will share with you this Code for Living from her father.



A Simple Code for Living



	You are the descendants of great and good forebears.  You will be

the ancestors of generations to come.  Are you willing to live upon the

glories of the past or are you going to make significant contributions

to the beauty, goodness, and truth of the future?  That all depends

upon you, how well you:



	1.  Develop and use the God-given talents with which you were born

and give creative and enduring service to your God and your fellow-men.



	2.  Honor and cherish the blood and the name which your parents

gave to you and pass them on to your children untarnished by the sins

of the generation through which you pass.



	Then the future will rise up and call you blessed, and you will

inherit an immortality which is real and of great worth.



	Thank you, Isabel.  Now I want to share with you some wisdom from

two General Authorities.  The first comes from Elder and Sister John

Longden when they were touring our mission.  One day I was visiting

with Sister Longden.  She said, "You know, every morning I am awakened

by Elder Longden repeating out loud to himself the fourth section of

the Doctrine and Covenants.  He usually does it while he is shaving or

showering.  I wake up every morning listening to the fourth section."



	I thought it was such a good idea that we commenced repeating it

every day as individuals in the mission office.  Sister Cannon and I

then visited the missionaries in their "digs," and we started to do it

throughout the mission.



	As I was getting ready to leave the mission, I decided that since

it had been so helpful to me every day to repeat the fourth section of

the Doctrine and Covenants, I would follow Elder Longden's example and

continue it for the rest of my life.  This I am doing.  Every day I say

the fourth section to George Cannon--out loud.  I encourage you to try

it.  It is a great way to start the day.  It takes sixty-five seconds

to say it slowly and out loud.  With over 86,000 seconds in a day, it

does not take a lot of time out of the day.  I encourage you to make

the scriptures a part of every day of your life.



	Now I want to share an experience of Elder LeGrand Richards, that

great missionary apostle who wrote the book A Marvelous Work and a

Wonder.



	When he was a young man he took out several life insurance

policies from Beneficial Life.  Later, I worked for that insurance

company.  When Elder Richards reached ninety-six, we invited him to

come over to the office because he had outlived the mortality table on

his life insurance.  We told him that according to our company he

should no longer be alive.  He had outlived the mortality table, and

according to our company he was dead.  We gave him a check for the

value of his insurance and told him we could no longer keep it.  He

took the check and put it into missionary work.



	Elder Richards at ninety-six was young.  He was young in heart,

mind, and spirit--even though some of his body was deteriorating.  He

had to have some toes cut off because of a circulation problem.  The

story is told that when this happened he said, "I would much rather die

from the bottom up than from the top down." This indicates the vitality

and humor of Elder Richards.



	A newspaper reporter once asked, "Elder Richards, what is it that

makes you so young?"



	His response was,



	I have a verse I have used all my life which has been a help to

me.  This is the way it goes:

	For very worry under the sun

	There is a remedy or there is none.

	If there be one, hurry and find it.

	If there be none, then never mind it.



	That is sound advice from a person who lived life to the fullest. 

I'm sure if you live it, you'll add ten years to your life.



	Now I want to share some thoughts from two educators.  Doctor

Terrell H. Bell, a leader in the Church who served as the U.S.

Commissioner of Education, gave a commencement address at Edinboro

State College in Pennsylvania.  He suggested to the graduates that they

consider answering ten questions to determine if they really were

educated.  I am going to give you a test.  Will you answer these

questions in your own minds and benefit from the experience of a

nationally recognized educator? Time will only permit asking you the

questions.  I hope sometime you can study the entire address.



	1. Do you have a salable, specialized skill yon can use to earn a

good living? "I think it is safe to say that feeling of worth and

dignity is most often obtained through one's; work.  The self-respect

and self-confidence so important to all of us usually are by-products

of career choice.... In my view, many young people take an

unnecessarily circuitous and hazardous route to adulthood simply

because they lack a strong commitment in this primary requisite."

	2. Have you learned how to learn?

	3. Do you have a thirst for knowledge and a hunger for learning?

	4. Can you communicate?

	5. Have you developed a clear set of standards and ideals to guide

your life and daily living?

	6.  Have you learned how to disagree without being disagreeable?

"Do you have the maturity to have your ideas challenged without losing

your cool? Have you rid yourself of prejudice? With all of the

diversity and pluralism of our free society, we must be understanding

and tolerant.  "

	7. Have you educated your feelings, your spirit, and your inner

soul?

	8. What is the state of your mental health? 

	9. Are you economically literate?

	10. Do you know yourself?  "Can you control your appetites and

passions?" [Deseret News, 3 July 1975]



	Now let me give you another test.  This comes from a professor in

Chicago who is reported to have given the following test to his

students.  He told them they were not really educated unless they could

say yes to all these questions.  Let's see how you do.



Who Is Educated?



ò	Has your education given you sympathy with all good causes and

made you espouse them?

ò	Has it made you public spirited?

ò	Has it made you a brother to the weak?

ò	Have you learned how to make friends and to keep them?

ò	Do yon know what it is to be a friend yourself?

ò	Can yon look an honest man or a pure woman straight in the eye?

ò	Do you see anything to love in a little child?

ò	Will a lonely dog follow you down the street?

ò	Can you be high-minded and happy in the meaner drudgeries of life?

ò	Do you think washing dishes and hoeing corn just as compatible

with high thinking as piano playing or golf?

ò	Are you good for anything to yourself? Can you be happy alone?

ò	Can you look out on the world and see anything but dollars and

cents?

ò	Can you look into a mud puddle by the wayside and see anything in

the puddle but mud?

ò	Can you look into the sky at night and see beyond the stars?

ò	Can your soul claim relationship with the Creator? [From "Leaves

of Gold"]



	I have always appreciated the statement of Elder Marion D. Hanks

of the Quorum of the Seventy: "The most important things in life are

not 'things.'"



	Finally, I would share with you a bit of George Cannon experience:

There is no free lunch.  If there is any magic to life, it is learning

how to work with all your "heart, might, mind, and strength." Work is a

blessing and not a curse.  Satan's philosophy is that one can get

something for nothing.  The Lord's plan is:



	Men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many

things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;

	For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves.

[D&C 58:27-28]



	As you continue to live to make good memories, I hope you will be

willing to learn each day from others.



3. Listen to the Prophet and Follow Him



	Now we come to the third L: Listen to the Prophet and Follow Him. 

I would like to read a portion of section 21 of the Doctrine and

Covenants.  It was a revelation given to all the members of the Church

on 6 April 1830. I shall commence with verse 4:



	Wherefore, meaning the church [Here the Savior is talking to each

one of us, because you and I are the Church], thou shalt give heed unto

all his words and commandments which he shall give unto you as he

receiveth them, walking in all holiness before me; [Here, the Savior is

talking about the Prophet Joseph Smith and those who will follow him as

prophets.  And now comes the most meaningful statement for you and me:]



	For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all

patience and faith. [v. 5]



	I would like to read that sentence again, adding a name: "For

President Ezra Taft Benson's word ye shall receive, as if from mine own

mouth, in all patience and faith."



	Then the revelation records the blessings that the Savior has

promised to each of us if we shall receive and follow the words of the

prophet:



	For by doing there things the gates of hell shall not prevail

against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness

from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his

name's glory. [v. 6]



	President Benson has taught us many inspired truths since he

became the president.  Although his voice has been somewhat stilled, he

continues as the Lord's representative here on the earth.  I feel one

of the reasons the Lord is preserving President Benson's life is so

that we might further study and ponder the important truths which he

has given to us that we might continue to strive to make them a part of

our hearts and lives.



	Today I would like to have each of us think of five of the

messages that we have received from President Benson.  To help remember

them, I would like you to look at the five fingers on your hand.  As I

discuss each one of these important messages, I would like you to

relate it to one of the fingers of your hand and try to keep these

messages in your mind each day.



	First, look at your thumb.  Since the very day President Benson

became the President of the Church, he has instructed us to read,

study, ponder, and apply daily the great truths that are found in the

Book of Mormon.  Listen to his words:



	We invite each member of the church to read daily from the Book of

Mormon.

	The Book of Mormon was written for us today.  God is the author of

the Book--it was meant for us.

	Every Latter-day Saint should make a study of this book a lifetime

pursuit.

	I feel certain that if, in our homes, parents will read from the

Book of Mormon prayerfully and regularly, both by themselves and with

their children, the spirit of that great book will come to permeate our

homes and all who dwell therein.



	As you look at your thumb each day, remember the words of the

prophet.  President Benson wants us to make the Book of Mormon a part

of our daily lives and to study it as a family.



	Now look at your index finger.  Here is another important message

that he has given.



	We  must cleanse the inner vessel.

	As I sought direction from the Lord, I have had reaffirmed in my

mind and heart the declaration of the Lord to say nothing but

repentance unto this generation.  The plaguing sin of this generation

is sexual immorality.  This, the Prophet Joseph said, would be the

source of more temptations, more buffetings, and more difficulties for

the elders of Israel than any other.



	If we are to cleanse the inner vessel, we must forsake immorality

and be clean.  I believe every day you and I will be challenged to keep

ourselves morally clean.  Each of us must determine within ourselves

where we are going to stand.  President Hugh B. Brown, who served in

the First Presidency of the Church, said at a tri-stake fireside at BYU

in 1962:



	Sometimes you wonder why the Church leaders speak so often and

frankly on the evils of unchastity.  May I tell you one reason.  We

think that sexual immorality is one of the most serious of sins because

by it a person is warring (or fighting) against himself.  It might be

called 'individual civil war,' because no man can do wrong and feel

right about it.  There is always something in him that protests, and he

is fighting against himself.  We won't want our young people nor the

older ones to be guilty of things of which they themselves cannot

approve. ["Purity Is Power," Hugh B. Brown, BYU Tri-Stake Fireside,

19621



	Dr. Henry A. Bowman, a renowned expert on courtship and marriage,

says,



	When all is said and done, there is nothing gained from premarital

adventure except immediate pleasure, and that at a tremendous risk and

exorbitant cost.  No really intelligent person will burn a cathedral to

fry an egg, even to satisfy a ravenous appetite. [Quoted by President

Brown at the BYU Tri-Stake Fireside, 1962]

	President Benson has also told us in cleansing the inner vessel,

we must be honest.  We must be persons of integrity He said,



	An honorable man or woman is one who is truthful; free from

deceit; from cheating, lying, stealing, or any form of deception.... A

man's character is judged on how he keeps his word. [The Teachings of

Ezra Taft Benson, p. 368]



	I believe every day you and I will be challenged to keep ourselves

morally clean and to be persons of integrity.  I believe the greatest

temptations coming from Satan are to destroy our integrity and our

virtue.  Every day we must make a determination what we will do and

where we will stand.  I encourage you each morning as you say your

prayers to ask your Father in Heaven to be with you and to help you to

keep yourself honest and clean.  Then each night as you conclude the

day with prayer, give an accounting to him.



	Now, look at your third finger.  What comes to your mind? This is

a subject President Benson has emphasized often.



	We must beware of pride.

	In the scriptures there is no such thing as righteous pride.  It

is always considered as a sin. We are not speaking of a wholesome view

of self-worth, which is best established by a close relationship with

God.  But we are speaking of pride as the universal sin.

	Pride is characterized by "What do I want out of life?" rather

than by "What would God have me do with my life? It is the fear of man

over the fear of God.

	Selfishness is one of the more common faces of pride.

	Another face of pride is contention.

	The opposite of pride is humbleness, meekness, submissiveness, and

teachableness.

	We can choose to humble ourselves by conquering bad feelings

towards our brothers and sisters, esteeming them as ourselves, and

lifting them as high or higher than we are.

 



	Now we come to the fourth finger.  It is a heartwarming message

full of love.



	President Benson has asked us to be good shepherds.  He said,



	We are aware of some who are inactive, of others who have become

critical and are prone to find fault, and of those who have been

disfellowshipped or excommunicated because of serious transgressions.

	To all such we reach out in love.  We are anxious to forgive in

the spirit of him who said:  "I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will

forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.

	We encourage Church members to forgive those who may have wronged

them.  To those who have ceased activity, and to those who have become

critical, say, "Come back, come back and feast at the table of the

Lord, and taste again the sweet and satisfying fruits of fellowship

with the Saints."



	President Benson is asking us to truly be our brother's keeper. 

Let us pray, ponder, and decide on someone today we can invite to come

back.



	Now we come to the final finger of our hand.  It makes our hand

complete.  This final message from President Benson is the foundation

of the gospel.  He says,



	The great commandment of life is to love the Lord.

	God our Father, Jesus, our elder brother and our redeemer, and the

Holy Ghost, the Testator, are perfect.  They know us best and love us

most and will not leave one thing undone for our eternal welfare. 

Should we not love them for it and honor them first?

	Are we striving to put the Lord first and to please him?

	I testify to you that God's pay is the best pay that this world or

any other world knows anything about.  And it comes in full abundance

only to those who love the Lord and put him first.



	My beloved friends, I invite you to take time each day to look at

your hand and contemplate these five inspired messages of our living

prophet, President Benson.  These are messages for you and for me.  Let

us make them a part of our daily living.



	I leave my testimony with you that President Benson is the Lord's

mouthpiece upon the earth today.  How blessed we are to have a prophet

to guide and direct us in these latter days.  Let us listen to him and

follow him.



4. Live by the Light of Christ



	The final L I want to share with you is to Live by the Light of

Christ, which is within each one of you.



	When President Hinckley visited us in the Philippines I was with

him for several days.  He quoted many times verse 24 of section 50 of

the Doctrine and Covenants as he talked to the members and

missionaries.



	I said to President Hinckley, "I hadn't really been aware of that

scripture until I heard you quote it."



	He said, "To me, that sums up what the gospel is all about."



	Here is verse 24:



	That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and

continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth

brighter and brighter until the perfect day.



	In chapters 8 and 9 of 3 Nephi we read of the terrible destruction

that took place on this continent: "The whole face of the land was

changed," "there was thick darkness" that "there could not be any light

at all," and "the wicked were destroyed."



	And it came to pass that there was a voice heard among all the

inhabitants of the earth, upon all the face of this land. . . .

	Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have

eternal life.  Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and

whosoever will come, him will I receive; and blessed are those who come

unto me.

	Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God.  I created the heavens

and the earth, and all things that in them are.  I was with the Father

from the beginning.  I am in the Father, and the Father in me; and in

me hath the Father glorified his name. . . .

	And as many as have received me, to them have I given to become

the sons of God; and even so will I to as many as shall believe on my

name, for behold, by me redemption cometh, and in me is the law of

Moses fulfilled.

	I am the light and the life of the world.  I am Alpha and Omega,

the beginning and the end. [3 Nephi 9:1, 14-15, 17-18]



	When the Savior appeared to the Nephites after his resurrection,



	He stretched forth his hand and spake unto the people, saying:

	Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come

into the world.

	And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have

drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have

glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the

which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the

beginning. [3 Nephi 11:9-11]



	I invite you to read again chapters 9 and 11 of 3 Nephi.  Catch

the spirit of the light that can come into your life.  What promises

and blessings are in store for you if you will accept and follow the

light of the Savior and make him the center of your life!



	I conclude the fourth L, Living by the Light of Christ, with these

words of the Savior:



	And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be

filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you; and that body

which is filled with light comprehendeth all things. [D&C 88:67]



Conclusion



	Thanks for coming.  Thanks for listening.  Thanks for being you. 

I hope you will live each day to make good memories by Liking Yourself,

Learning from Others, Listening to the Prophet and Following him, and

Living by the Light of Christ.



	May you go forward, making each day a good day.  Live it the best

you can.  "Today is as much a part of eternity as any day a thousand

years ago or as will be a thousand years hence" (Richard L. Evans). 

Each day is part of your eternal life.



	May you find happiness and joy in all you do as you live by truth. 

I leave with you my witness that God lives.  Jesus Christ is our

Savior, and if you will live by his teachings and follow him, you can

have eternal life and peace within.  You are a special generation,

chosen to help prepare for the second coming of our Savior.  May the

Lord bless you and be with you each day is my prayer.  And I say this

in the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.



                              EDUCATION:

                                MOLDING

                               CHARACTER

                           Robert L. Beckman



     Robert L. Beckman is a member of the Presidency of the Seventy of

     The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This devotional

     address was given on 20 August 1991 in the Marriott Center during

     Campus Education Week.



	I am grateful to be with you at the beginning of this education

week.  It is inspiring to be with so many people who are intent on

learning, progressing, and improving.  I believe you have discovered

the fountain of youth.  Roger G. Baker described what I mean when he

wrote:



	There are some needs that we as humans can satisfy and call it

done.  We can feel safe with an enjoyable but humble shelter and know

that we will have enough food for tomorrow. There are other needs that

can never be satisfied.  The fact is that the more we get the more we

want.  When people understand love, the need is never completely

satisfied.  The more they get the more they give and need to give.

	Education is a similar human need.  Some people find that learning

just opens more doors of an insatiable appetite to know.  Those who

find pleasure in new ideas just keep discovering new ideas....

	I expect that urge to know is the Fountain of Youth for many

people.  Those who can get up each day and learn something new and

exciting will always be young. [Roger G. Baker, Deseret News, 30 June

1991, p. P5]



	I am particularly pleased to address the theme of this education

week, "Education: Molding Character." This theme directs us to the true

objective of education--the development of godlike characteristics and

attributes.  What we call character on a worldly level has parallels

with what we call faith on a spiritual level.  As I speak about

character, I would like to point out some of these parallels.

 



The Purpose of Life



	The Lord revealed to Joseph Smith that "it is impossible . . . to

be saved in ignorance" (D&C 131:6).  The education we pursue should

free us from the shackles of ignorance so that we can receive the

salvation promised by the Lord.  The Prophet observed that the great

example of a saved being is the Lord Jesus Christ.  In the Prophet's

words, Jesus "is the prototype or standard of salvation" (Joseph Smith,

Lectures on Faith 7:9).  Since proper education ultimately leads to

salvation, we can also say that the Savior is the prototype of an

educated person, one whose character has been molded to conform to

eternal principles.  To be educated, therefore, is to be like Christ.



	A proper education should provide a meaning for life.  That

meaning should be the fundamental purpose of our existence and should

shape the building of our characters.  It should be important enough to

us to motivate our every action.



	I am impressed with the number of wise men in various fields who

have stressed the importance of discovering a meaning for life.  For

example, Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the Holocaust, stated, "Ever more

people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for"

(Viktor Frankl, The Unheard Cry for Meaning [New York: Simon and

Schuster, 1978], p. 21).  He noted that "The will to meaning is ... a

reliable criterion of mental health.... Conversely, lack of meaning and

purpose is indicative of emotional maladjustment" (Frankl, Unheard Cry,

p. 34).  Peters and Waterman stated in their popular book, In Search of

Excellence,



	We find it compelling that so many thinkers from so many fields

agree on the dominating need of human beings to find meaning and

transcend mundane things.... So strong is the need for meaning, in

fact, that most people will yield a fair degree of latitude or freedom

to institutions that give it to them. [Thomas J. Peters and Robert H.

Waterman ' Jr., In Search of Excellence (New York: Harper and Row,

1982), pp. 76-77]



	It is interesting that most of these same authors, while

emphasizing the need for meaning, have had no universal meaning to

give.  Frankl stated, "A logotherapist cannot tell a patient what the

meaning is, but he at least can show that there is a meaning in life"

(Franki, Unheard Cry, p. 41).  And another author awaits a new faith to

provide meaning:



	If a new faith is to capture our imagination, it must . . . be a

system of beliefs that will marshal our psychic energy toward

meaningful goals. [Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of

Optimal Experience (New York: Harper and Row, 1990), pp. 238-39]



	The restored gospel is that new faith.  I am so grateful for

revealed principles that provide eternal meaning for everyone.  These

principles are based on truth, which is "knowledge of things as they

are, and as they were, and as they are to come" (D&C 93:24).  The true

meaning of life, however, must be accepted on faith, which is "the

assurance which men have of the existence of things which they have not

seen" (Smith, Lectures on Faith 1:9).



	In recent years the Church media have focused on the purpose of

life as one of three major themes.  A Church videotape, Our Heavenly

Father's Plan, explains the plan of happiness.  The videotape includes

a montage of people pondering the question "What is the purpose of

life?" I am always struck by the answers these people give:



	"I'm not sure there is a purpose to life.  I have no idea.  You

tell me."



	"I'm trying to figure it out."



	"I've been trying to figure that out all my life."



	"I, m just living it to live."



	These sentiments are not fabricated.  Many people struggle with

this question.  Let me share a few of the thousands of responses we

received from people who viewed this videotape.



	From a young woman: "I believe in God, but I don't understand the

pain we experience in our daily lives.  I need to understand."



	From a young man: "At this point and time in my life it seems like

my world is falling apart.  Sometimes I cry myself to sleep at night,

wondering, where does it stop? How can I ease the pain?"



	From an inactive member: "After listening to the tape, I had a

warm, wonderful feeling deep inside of me.  I have been straying away

from the Church, and hearing 'I Am a Child of God' again reminded me of

why I am here on earth.  The purpose of life is to learn to be happy."



	This member has discovered that man is that he might have joy (see

2 Nephi 2:25), and that "happiness is the object and design of our

existence" (Teachings, p. 255).  Happiness is to be found, however, by

pursuing the path that leads to it, which is the path of spiritual

education--a path that cannot be walked without effort.  When we

recognize that God is the source of all knowledge, we will seek to live

worthy of having the Holy Spirit with us to guide us to truth.



	Joseph Smith taught:



	A person may profit by noticing the first intimation of the spirit

of revelation; for instance, when you feel pure intelligence flowing

into you, it may give you sudden strokes of ideas, so that by noticing

it, you may find it fulfilled the same day or soon; (i.e.) those things

that were presented unto your minds by the Spirit of God, will come to

pass; and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understanding it, you

may grow in to the principle of revelation, until you become perfect in

Christ Jesus. [Teachings, p. 151; emphasis added]



	Elder John Widtsoe explained:



	It is a paradox that men will gladly devote time every day for

many years to learn a science or an art; yet will expect to win a

knowledge of the gospel, which comprehends all sciences and arts,

through perfunctory glances at books or occasional listening to

sermons.  The gospel should be studied more intensively than any school

or college subject.  They who pass opinion on the gospel without having

given it intimate and careful study are not lover of truth, and their

opinions are worthless. [John A. Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations

(Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1943), p. 8]



The Aim of True Education



	Developing character in harmony with the purpose of life is

another great aim of education, and the path to happiness.  We must

understand the proper objective of education and approach learning with

humility, sincerity, spirituality, and a keen desire for truth. 

President Joseph F. Smith named false educational ideas as one of three

dangers that threaten the Church within (see GD, pp. 312-13).



	He also stated that 



	this knowledge of truth, combined with proper regard for it, and

its faithful observance, constitutes true education.  The mere stuffing

of the mind with a knowledge of facts is not education.  The mind must

not only possess a knowledge of truth, but the soul must revere it,

cherish it, love it as a priceless gem; and this human life must be

guided and shaped by it in order to fulfil its destiny.  The mind

should not only be charged with intelligence, but the soul should be

filled with admiration and desire for pure intelligence which comes of

a knowledge of the truth. . . .

	Educate yourself not only for time, but also for eternity. [GD, p.

269]



President David O. McKay stated:



	True education--the education for which the Church stands--is the

application of knowledge to the development of a noble and Godlike

character....

	Character is the aim of true education; and science, history, and

literature are but means used to accomplish the desired end. Character

is not the result of chance work but of continuous right thinking and

right acting. [GI, pp. 440-41; emphasis added]



	Right thinking, the ability to control our thoughts and direct

them into productive channels, is fundamental to a godlike character.

The mind is a wonderful thing. Joseph Smith said, "We consider that God

has created man with a mind capable of instruction, and a faculty which

may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the

light communicated from heaven to the intellect" (Teachings, p. 51).



	Note that the mind will be enlarged according to the heed and

diligence we give to God's revealed truth. An educated mind is one that

can focus attention, and focusing attention is an act of will requiring

effort. One writer observed that "attention is an act of will, of work

against the inertia of our own minds." He continues,



	As Rollo May says, "When we analyze will ..., we shall find

ourselves pushed back to the level attention or intention as the seat

of will. The effort which goes into the exercise of the will is really

effort of attention; the strain in willing is the effort to keep the

consciousness clear, i.e., the strain of keeping the attention focused.

[M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Simon and Schuster,

1978), pp. 120-21; emphasis added]



	Those who have faith in the Lord deliberately expend effort to

focus attention on unseen things. As Paul taught, we are to bring "into

captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians

10:5).



	Orson Hyde, one of the early apostles in this dispensation,

taught,



	Let the mind be concentrated, and it possesses almighty power. It

is the agent of the Almighty clothed with mortal tabernacles, and we

must learn to discipline it, and bring it to bear on one point, and not

allow the Devil to interfere and confuse it, nor divert it from the

great object we have in view.  [JD 7:153]



	This focus or concentration is captured in these three scriptures

from the Doctrine and Covenants:

 



	"Remain steadfast in your minds" (D&C 84:61).



	"Treasure up in your minds continually the words of life" (D&C

84:85).



	"Sanctify yourselves that your minds become single to God" (D&C

88:68).



	I have observed throughout my life that the great men of the

world, especially the great Saints, are always thinking--about the

Lord, about others, about how they can serve. Their minds are fertile

fields for the seeds of inspiration, and their thoughts naturally spawn

actions. This principle is illustrated in a simple story of love that I

read recently: An elderly widow gathered some windfall apples, prepared

and bottled applesauce, and then presented twelve quarts of applesauce

to a young single mother who was depressed because of her struggles.

The elderly widow said simply, "I've been thinking about you." The

effect on the young single sister was dramatic and miraculous. This act

of kindness helped her conquer her depression (see Kathy England,

"Quarts of Love," Ensign, July 1991, p. 40).



	As I observe missionaries, who are dedicating their lives to

service, I am struck by how often they fall short of their potential

because, as they say, "I didn't think of it." Education disciplines the

mind to think, to ponder, to pray; and thus it becomes a receptacle for

inspiration.



	The real tragedy of negative emotions and thoughts, such as anger,

envy, lust, or fear, is that they dissipate our energy, limiting our

ability to experience the power of faith and the gift of charity.



	Right thinking must be translated into right acting. Thomas Henry

Huxley reminded us that "the great end of life is not knowledge but

action" (Technical Education, 1877). Joseph Smith taught that faith is

a principle of action as well as a principle of assurance. "It is

faith, and faith only, which is the moving cause of all action  .... 

And as faith is the moving cause of all action in temporal concerns, so

it is in spiritual" (Smith, Lectures on Faith 1:10, 12).



	Gaining an assurance of the existence of unseen things is a

profoundly satisfying experience. We often refer to this as testimony.

But feelings will fade and even die unless they are converted to

action. Carlyle said, "Conviction, were it never so excellent, is

worthless till it convert itself into Conduct" (Thomas Carlyle, "The

Everlasting Yea," The Victorian Age: Prose, Poetry, and Drama, ed. John

Wilson Bowyer and John Lee Brooks [New York: Prentice Hall, 1954], p.

168).



	Similarly, the true test of education comes in how it affects our

behavior. EIder William H. Bennett, speaking at an area conference,

said:



	I have learned a great lesson from the letters of the alphabet 

....  We can repeat them frontwards or backwards, but when we do they

have little meaning because they have not been put together with

purpose and direction. When we put them together with real purpose and

direction the result is sacred hymns, the scriptures, great poetry and

prose, wonderful songs, and so on. 

	As it is in the letters of the alphabet, so it is in our lives 

....  Action is important... the right  kind  of action--purposeful

action. [William H. Bennett, Tonga Area Conference Report, 1976, p. 15]



	In a classic address on service, President Hugh B. Brown taught:

 



	Every man's religion should have practical issue, not merely

emotional responsiveness which delights in hearing the gospel, but

lacks diligence in living it. We must remember that religion is action,

not diction. Let us pray that God will deliver us ,from our dullness of

conscience, .from a ,feeble sense of duty, from thoughtless disregard

of others, and ,from all half-heartedness in our work  ....

	Let everyone get under the load of responsibility, and realize

that every doctrine has its associated duty, that every truth has its

task. The gospel when the Master first proclaimed it, was not intended

primarily ,for preaching--it was intended for action  ....

	No man can truly assimilate Christianity by impression alone,

there must be expression as well. [Hugh B. Brown, "Service," Relief

Society Magazine, December 1969, pp. 884, 888]



	Action is a fundamental purpose for our existence and an integral

part of our mortal probation. The Book of Mormon teaches this doctrine:

"And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free

forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be

acted upon" (2 Nephi 2:26; emphasis added).



	Brigham Young said: "As we grow up we receive strength, knowledge

and wisdom, some more and some less; but only by keeping the commands

of the Lord Jesus can we have the privilege of knowing the things

pertaining to eternity and our relationship to the heavens" (DBY, p.

222).



	Character, the consequence of proper education, is manifest

through its influence. Men and women of character see through the mists

of conformity and move the world to greater spiritual and moral

heights. Character is virtue such as that which went out from Christ to

heal all who touched him. It is a commanding presence, a power.



	Faith is character that is matured and adapted to spiritual

quests. Joseph Smith taught that "faith is not only the principle of

action, but of power also, ... whether in heaven or on earth" (Smith,

Lectures on Faith 1:13). An assurance born of the Spirit that is

translated into action results in marvelous power--a divine gift, a

reward for righteousness. Such power achieves where lesser influences

fail or do not even try.



	Indeed, the possession of power constitutes the test whereby we

can measure and determine the quality and the degree of faith we

possess. Our faith consists of the degree of power and influence we

have with God our Father whereby we work works of righteousness and do

many miraculous things. [Bruce R. McConkie, Lord, Increase Our Faith,

Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year (Provo, 31 October 1967),

p. 3]



	Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of character:



	This is a natural power, [like] light and heat, and all nature

cooperates with it. The reason why we,feel one mans presence, and do

not, feel another's, is as simple as gravity. Truth is the summit of

being; justice is the application of it to affairs. All individual

natures stand in a scale, according to the purity of this element in

them. The will of the pure runs down,from them into other natures, as

water runs down from a higher to a lower vessel. [Ralph Waldo Emerson,

Character, 1844]



	Ironically, this powerful influence is often quiet and subdued. As

the priesthood, it distills upon the soul as the dews from heaven (see

D&C 121:45). Emerson also stated, "We shall one day see that the most

private is the most public energy, that quality atones for quantity,

and grandeur of character acts in the dark, and succors them who never

saw it" (Emerson, Character, 1844).



	How is such character developed? Education, secular and spiritual,

is a necessity. But a higher process of education is suggested by the

brochure for this education week. It included this description of the

theme:



	The skilled hands of the sculptor move deftly over the clay,

molding and shaping, bringing the masterpiece to life. So too, people

take their experiences in life--what they learn and what they do with

what they learn--molding and shaping, bringing to life their own

characters. [BYU Campus Education Week brochure, August 1991]



	This description brings to mind images of artistry involving the

skills of the teacher and of the learner: creativity, intuition,

caring, a vision of the beautiful, experience, work, patience,

endurance. All of these qualities and more go into the process of

creating the educated person. If our education is to help us conform to

the image of Christ, however, our Lord and Savior must be the "author

and the finisher of [our] faith" (Moroni 6:4).



To Become Like Him



	We must voluntarily submit the process of molding and shaping of

our characters to our Redeemer, who is, ultimately, the sculptor. As

Isaiah suggested, we should learn to say, "But now, O Lord, thou art

our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the

work of thy hand" (Isaiah 64:8; emphasis added).



	C.S. Lewis frequently taught the need to submit our growth to the

will of God. He wrote,



	Christ says, "Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and

so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. l have not

come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are

any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I

want to have the whole tree down  ....  Hand over the whole natural

self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you

think wicked--the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In

fact, I will give you Myself' my own will shall become yours." [Mere

Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1960), pp. 166-67]



	What a giant leap of faith is required to say, honestly and

sincerely, "Lord, I do not want to do what I want to do, I want to do

what you want me to do. I want to become what you want me to become."

implied in that statement is all of the effort required for right

thinking and right acting, as well as the incomprehensible grace of

Christ, without whom we can do nothing. C.S. Lewis also wrote, "There

are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy

will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be

done"' (The Great Divorce [New York: Macmillan, 1946], p. 72; italics

in original).



	If we yield ourselves to the Spirit, subduing the natural man, we

can expect rewards.



	The Lord said, "If thou shalt ask, thou shalt receive revelation

upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge,... that which bringeth joy,

that which bringeth life eternal" (D&C 42:61). The great latter-day

scholar Orson Pratt expressed his experience with learning:



	There is a joy, a satisfaction, existing in the mind of the

righteous man, in the discovery of every additional truth  ....  It

matters not how or in what way or manner he obtains this new truth, it

is calculated to inspire his heart with joy and happiness. [Orson

Pratt, Masterful Discourses and Writings of Orson Pratt (Salt Lake

City: Bookcraft, 1962), p. 523]



	Joy in learning, however, must mature to joy in doing, or it will

be short-lived. The seed, which is miraculous in itself, must sprout,

grow, and bear fruit, or it will end in itself; it will not reproduce

after its kind. Christ defined happiness in terms of doing: "If ye know

these things, happy are ye if ye do them" (John 13:17).



	The Book of Mormon states that the Nephites lived after the

"manner of happiness" (2 Nephi 5:27). Manner is a characteristic or

distinctive way of living or mode of acting. Happiness, or joy, is an

attribute developed over time. People have the talent for happiness in

varying degrees, but our challenge in this life is to learn to be

happy.



	As I mentioned earlier, Joseph Smith said that "happiness is the

object and design of our existence." Object in this context means end

or goal, and design means a mental project or scheme in which means to

an end are laid down; deliberate, purposeful planning; an underlying

scheme that governs functioning, developing, or unfolding (see

Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary [Merriam-Webster:

Springfield, Massachusetts, 1983], pp. 343, 814).



	Happiness, then, is not only our end goal; it is the path we

choose to get there. lt is learning to enjoy now the kinds of things

that we will enjoy in eternity. Emerson said, "Rectitude is a perpetual

victory, celebrated not by cries of joy, but by serenity, which is joy

fixed or habitual" (Emerson, Character, 1844).



	It is this attribute of happiness that we carry with us in death.

The Book of Mormon teaches that when we are raised in the Resurrection,

"He that is happy shall be happy still" (Mormon 9:14), and "the

righteous shall have a perfect knowledge of their enjoyment" (2 Nephi

9:14). We will be "raised to happiness according to [our desires for]

happiness" (Alma 41:5). On the other hand, many will receive a lesser

reward because they were "not willing to enjoy that which they might

have received" (D&C 88:32).



	God is the embodiment of the attribute of happiness. To be like

him is to experience a fulness of joy. If we go contrary to that sacred

nature, we go contrary to the nature of happiness (see Alma 41:10-11).



	I remind you that the nature of eternal life is to learn to live

the quality of life that God lives.



	Joseph Smith said, "When men begin to live by faith they begin to

draw near to God; and when faith is perfected they are like him"

(Smith, Lectures on Faith 7:8). He also said, "Here, then, is eternal

life--to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how

to be gods yourselves" (HC 6:306).



	And Elder Bruce R. McConkie gave this insightful commentary on

John 17:3:



	It is one thing to know about God and another to know him  .... 

To know God is to think what he thinks, to feel what he feels, to have

the power he possesses, to comprehend the truths he understands, and to

do what he does. Those who know God become like him, and have his kind

of life, which is eternal life. [Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New

Testament Commentary (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1972), 1:762]



	I would emphasize one sentence from Elder McConkie: "We know

[him], in the sense of gaining eternal life, when we enjoy and

experience the same things [he does]." If our customary mode of acting

is in harmony with the nature of God, we will be like him; we will

enjoy and experience what he does.



	What is God's characteristic mode of acting? What do we know about

the experience of godhood? The Lord answers, "For behold, this is my

work and my glory--to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of

man" (Moses 1:39). Our Father is fully devoted to sharing happiness

with his children. Actually, the plan of salvation is referred to by

Alma as the "plan of happiness" (see Alma 42:8), adding another

dimension to our understanding of that great plan.



	Eider John A. Widtsoe gave us additional insight into the quality

of life God lives. He said,



	[Offering salvation] is the Lord's self-imposed duty, this great

labor his highest glory  .... Under the Gospel, what is man's highest

ideal? Under the Gospel it must be to become like the Father. If the

Lords concern is chiefly to bring happiness and joy, salvation, to the

whole human family, we cannot become like the Father unless we too

engage in that work  ....  Likewise, it is man's duty, self-imposed,

his pleasure and joy, his labor, and ultimately his glory. [John A.

Widtsoe, Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine, October 1934,

25:189-90]



	Thus, to become like God we must learn to love and enjoy offering

salvation to his other children. It must become our characteristic mode

of acting.



	As I stated in the beginning, the prototype of a truly educated

person is the Lord Jesus Christ. A proper education consists of

allowing our Lord and Savior to mold in us a godlike character,

habitually attuned to right thinking and right acting. Then, through

his grace, we can be like him and his Father, enjoying power and

influence now, and eternal life, which is the kind of life God lives,

hereafter. This is what the theme of this conference suggests to me:

"Education: Molding Character."



	May God bless all of you during this eventful week to examine the

meaning of education and to understand what God expects of us as his

children that we might return to his presence and share in his glory. I

am grateful for this marvelous institution, which provides this

opportunity for so many of us to continue our education, and pray that

the zeal and desire that we feel here might be carried with us into our

everyday lives and reflect in our every activity, that we might truly

be found to be disciples of Jesus Christ, which I pray in the name of

Jesus Christ. Amen.