George Q. Morris

Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (April 8, 1954 – April 23, 1962)

Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (October 6, 1951 – April 8, 1954)

General Conference Addresses

• April 1960 General Conference
  • The Return of the Jews
    • “It is that point that I think is very significant. The Savior recognized the domination of Satan over the world generally, and called him the prince of the world, but in a special way—in the way that Brother Benson has referred to—he has entered into the politics of the world among the nations of the world, and already subjugated about one billion people of the world, and by a dire, sanguinary, and deadly philosophy has brought death to millions and has brought slavery to almost a billion people.”
    • “I declare to you, my dear brethren and sisters, that Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of the world, the Son of the Living God. We cannot partly accept him—as a philosopher, as merely the most perfect man who ever lived. When we do that we reject him. We reject his sovereignty and his divinity. He is the God of Israel, and the God of the whole world.”
    • “The issues are now clearly drawn, and the time will come when Satan, again, by the power of the Only Begotten, shall be cast down, and Jesus Christ will reign supreme, and all those who believe and accept the fulness of his gospel and devote themselves with all their hearts to the building up of his kingdom will be saved and honored with him. Those who will not must of necessity be cast out.”
• October 1959 General Conference
  • Eternal Life—Eternal Marriage
    • “And how shall we obtain eternal life? Well, only through the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
    • “Now I believe that our teachers, our leaders, and our parents must be taught and must teach these principles. They are as clear as words can make them, as the Lord has explained them. I cannot help feeling that many are not being properly married because they are not properly taught. It is not enough to urge temple marriage. They must know what temple marriage means. It is a matter of eternal life and exaltation in the presence of God forever and forever.”
    • “May the Lord help us to awaken our youth and the parents, and all of us, to the need to know what this marriage is, to live worthy of it, to be prepared for it, for our youth to enter into it when they are mature enough, and trained enough, and for all who have been married for time only to prepare themselves for this glorious covenant—because in this marriage that God has instituted there are three parties to it. God is the principal party, and the union is consummated by his power and his authority, and his promises are attached to that union. If, in it, we are faithful and true to the gospel of Jesus Christ, we shall be exalted in his presence and dwell with him forever.”
• April 1959 General Conference
  • Build Up the Kingdom
    • “There is a striking and interesting difference between this dispensation and all other dispensations. All other dispensations have faded away in a comparatively short time into apostasy. This is the only dispensation from the beginning that is not to follow that pattern.”
    • “The statistics given this morning were interesting. We now number over a million and a half people. Some experts have estimated the future growth of the Church, and they estimate upon recognized principles of such estimations, that in the year 2000, forty-one years from now, the population of the Church will be (I must refer to the figures because I could hardly believe them) six million people, and I see no reason why we should not expect that to be so.”
    • “We say that in love and consideration for our fellow men, but it is our duty to declare that fact, that this is the kingdom of God established by the Lord Jesus Christ and that its mission is to fill the earth until the Lord Jesus Christ shall come. And we must bear that testimony, and we must bear the responsibilities that attach to that testimony. Our lives and all that we have and are should be devoted to the upbuilding of this great kingdom preparatory for our Lord and Savior to come and reign in the earth.”
    • “Let us with all our hearts build up the kingdom of God, for the time is coming when gross wickedness and corruption will be swept from the earth God has restored his gospel. It is being preached to all the world, so that as many as possible will forsake wickedness and join the people of God and become the seed of Israel, the sons of Abraham, the followers of and believers in Jesus Christ the Redeemer of the world. After that, those others who will not do that may have to be swept away as they war one with another and fall into the pits that they dig for others.”
• October 1958 General Conference
  • The Uses of Adversity
    • “So, in adversity we may have that which will exalt us, or we may have that which will degrade us. We may have that which, “if we endure it well,” will ennoble us, and we may have that which, if we indulge in self-pity and bitterness, may destroy us. In all our adversities there are these two elements, and the determining factor is how shall we endure them? Shall we endure them well? If not, they may destroy us.”
• April 1958 General Conference
  • The Reason for Sin and Evil
    • “It has been a great satisfaction to me just to look over the Lord’s explanation of why there is sin, and I want to bring to you the few short sentences in which he explains why sin is in the world.”
    • “If we take away their free agency we nullify the purpose of the existence of mankind in the world. Satan attempted to do that.”
    • “There is the key to the question of evil. If we cannot be good, except as we resist and overcome evil, then evil must be present to be resisted.”
    • “So this earth life is set up according to true principles, and these conditions that followed the transgression were not, in the usual sense, penalties that were inflicted upon us. All these that I have named to you that seem to be sad inflictions of punishment, sorrow, and trouble are in the end not that. They are blessings. We have attained a knowledge of good and evil, the power to prize the sweet, to become agents unto ourselves, the power to obtain redemption and eternal life. These things had their origin in this transgression. The Lord has set the earth up so we have to labor if we are going to live, which preserves us from the curse of idleness and indolence; and though the Lord condemns us to death—mortal death—it is one of the greatest blessings that comes to us here because it is the doorway to immortality, and we can never attain immortality without dying.”
    • “So these are all real blessings. We come to the earth with all these conditions arranged as they are so that we have to struggle constantly against evil, struggle to preserve our lives, struggle for everything of true value—that is the thing for us to understand—this is the course of life that is most desirable, and for our good. We have no need to find fault with these conditions. The Lord has ordained them all for our welfare and happiness. The truth as I understand and feel about it is simply that circumstances placed Adam in a position where by a technical transgression he could come into mortal life, moving out of immortality into these earth conditions for his blessing, for the blessing of the race, without which no immortality and eternal life and exaltation could ever come. And in doing this, also, of course, his body, taken from the earth, was made mortal—an absolute essential.”
• April 1957 General Conference
  • The Importance of Fast Offerings
    • “What a beautiful description of a day that we should follow once a month for the alleviation of suffering, for our own spiritual growth and development, and to carry out the purposes of the Lord that there shall be no want, no suffering, but every attention given to those who are afflicted and in distress.”
    • “It is by doing the will of God that we will attain salvation and accomplish his purpose, and in no other way.”
• October 1956 General Conference
  • The Origin of Man
    • “So he was a man, as we are men. He was also Deity, because of his perfection, and because his Father had by divine investiture raised him to that position. While he was in the earth, he was still he who had created the earth, as he was also when he submitted to apostate priests and a pagan Roman governor to be judged and to be crucified.”
    • “Let us realize who we are and what we are and how we should live. And when we meet these teachings opposed to God’s word that come to us and our children, let us know what they are. They are nothing but the opinions of men. Think how fantastic that a man, who is a son of God, should deny God and insist that he came from a low form of life up through the shapes of lower animals to the image of God.”
• April 1956 General Conference
  • The Meaning of the Atonement
    • “I think the principle question before us is not do we comprehend the atonement, but do we accept it and know that it is true. Many things about us we do not comprehend; as one speaker said, with respect to electricity, the scientific men say they do not know all about it, do not know much about it, they do not know what it is. They know how it acts, but they do not know why it acts, and yet we all avail ourselves of the blessing of electricity without comprehending it.”
    • “I think it is exactly the same with the glorious principle of atonement. If electricity in our highly developed civilization were taken out of our lives, our civilization would stop, it is so integrated into our activities. And if the principle of the atonement were taken away, what would be the result? We would have no Jewish scriptures, we would have no Jewish people. There would have been no covenant with Abraham. We would have no New Testament. We would have no gospel of Jesus Christ, for the atonement is the foundation of it all.”
    • “It is impossible for me to understand why so-called Christian men and men of intelligence try to rob the Lord Jesus Christ of his Messiahship. It can only be because of their darkness. Scholarship, barren and cold, does not comprehend life and does not give us the key to this life. Our relationship with God our Eternal Father is a relationship of our hearts, and a pure heart is wiser and more intelligent than a barren intellect.”
    • “May we always remember that we are the children of God; may we live like the children of God. Thank God for the truth, the most glorious, the strongest, most wonderful thing in the world or in the eternities. Thank God for the restored truth. I bear my witness that the truth is here in this Church and kingdom of God, and the power of God is here unto our salvation. Jesus Christ is our Messiah; he said those who would not accept his Messiahship would die in their sins, and I bear witness this is true, and that those who will accept his Messiahship may be redeemed and exalted.”
• October 1955 General Conference
  • The Rise of the Kingdom
    • “How could we identify this kingdom? Well, there are many ways. Mark the advance of civilization, from the ancient, Asiatic powers, with whom God had dealings through his prophets, advancing westward over Asia, advancing westward through Europe, always westward, and then it was stopped for centuries. Thousands of miles of ocean formed an impediment to this advancement. Then in due time the Lord bridged that great gap, inspiring Columbus to discover this land, this the greatest of all continents and the choicest of all lands, which God had reserved for the setting up of his kingdom; on which he established this free government, giving this nation power over the mother country in the Revolutionary War. During these years in Europe before America was discovered, kingdoms were established all over the land and continued for centuries.”
    • “It was in the time of these kings that this kingdom of God was to be established. It is interesting to note that in great movements, and the establishment of kingdoms and dominions, two things are very essential: transportation and communication. Without those, developments of that kind are not possible. The Lord has taken care of that, and now as his kingdom advances in power, we hear the spoken word around the world, and we are on the way, I think, even to be able to see around the world through television; and we are having planes built that will take us from here to our temple in Bern and to our other operations in Europe between sunrise and sunset. The Lord has provided the necessary means at the right time.”
    • “Unless we can accept the supernatural, which means the power of God, we cannot accept salvation in the kingdom of God, and we do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We do not believe that the gospel is the power of God, if when the power of God is manifest to bring it to us, we reject it and deny it.”
• April 1955 General Conference
  • “Unless We Have His Message”
    • “Unless we have his message and his instructions, we shall not know what life is, we shall not know who we are or what we are; we shall not know how to live; we shall not know what aim to place before us in life, because it is only through the gospel of Jesus Christ that we know the truth that should guide us day by day and sustain us through our lives and make us truly intelligent beings.”
    • “The obligations are such and our relations to him are such that it is our most serious duty in life to know him and love him and keep his commandments and thereby know and love our Father in heaven and keep his commandments, because he is the messenger from the Father; he is the one chosen of the Father to represent him in the earth, chosen of the Father to be the Redeemer of the world, chosen of the Father to be the Creator of the world. Into his hands the Father has placed all things, and we are in his hands. One day we will stand before him to be judged, and we will be judged as to our relations to him and our attitude towards him and whether or not we have listened to his word and kept his commandments. We will all come to that day and to that accounting, and so will every man and woman in the world.”
    • “The Lord Jesus Christ is not on trial before the world. Men should understand that. The world is on trial before the Lord Jesus Christ, and we will have to account for the attitude taken toward him and his message, and we cannot accept him without accepting his principles and his doctrines. If we reject his principles and his doctrines, we reject him. If we reject his divinity, we reject him.”
    • “It is not because of our superior knowledge and intelligence that we reject Jesus Christ. It is because we lack in superior knowledge and intelligence and humility and meekness that he is rejected. If we will be faithful and humble, as the brethren have said in this conference, and keep his commandments, we will know of his divinity, and it will be our salvation and our exaltation.”
• October 1954 General Conference
  • The True Church
    • “What a simple and logical and beautiful explanation of the facts! And that is something to guide us in the midst of all the religious confusion that exists in the world today. The Church of Jesus Christ by his direction bears his name.”
    • “The Lord continued in his instructions to the effect that: If the Church has his name and it is built upon his gospel, then it is his Church; and if they would pray to the Father he would hear their prayers, and his works shall be manifest in the Church.”
    • “Note the significant qualification added that not only must it have his name, but it must also be based upon his gospel. Then he adds that if churches are built that are based upon the works of men or the works of Satan, then these will have joy in their churches for a period but the time will come when they will be hewn down and cast into the fire.”
    • “These are the simple truths as to a restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and it is the simple truth, that by these means this gospel has again been restored in these last days by the Lord Jesus Christ, the sole source of salvation for the human family, through the Prophet Joseph Smith, who received the Holy Priesthood, followed his instructions, received his revelations and built up again his Church; and thus an open channel of revelation was established, which channel shall never be closed, for this is the Church of the last dispensation and it shall never again be taken from the earth.”
• April 1954 General Conference
  • A Heritage of Faith
    • “My mother taught me to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. I want to bear witness to you, my dear brethren and sisters, that that principle is true, that in this the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church of the living God, there is no other principle that we should follow, no other principle, except to seek first the kingdom of God and keep his commandments, and all else will be added. And I thank the Lord for the abundant and unexpected and continuing and unfailing blessings, temporal and spiritual, that he has given to me, beyond all my hopes and all my deserts, and I acknowledge his hand in these things. And I am glad to lay them on the altar for his service and for this work.”
    • “I do not feel that I should say more. My duty now is one of performance, but I do bear witness that this Church is the Church of Jesus Christ, set up by him, directed by him, a power for the salvation of the human family. And that this Church is equal to every situation that arises in the world, and if the world would accept it, it would meet every situation. This Church is an organized movement for world peace, if the world only knew it. This is the world peace movement, both for individuals and for nations, and there can be no substitute.”
• October 1953 General Conference
  • The Kingdom of God Is Here
    • “As President Richards was speaking of the world situation and of our relation to it, I could not help feeling, though it may seem presumptuous and some may take offense, that this, nevertheless, is the spiritual capitol of this world. From here God speaks to this world, and his Authorities are officially seated this day in this sacred Tabernacle, and their word is binding on all the world; and they are calling this world to repentance, to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ, the only power in the world that will save it, that will enable men and women to shape acceptable lives before our Father in heaven. Men and women by it are led to love the truth, to love God and to keep his commandments, and by their example and by their word, spread this glorious gospel.”
    • “The ministrations of the authorized servants of God produce scripture; the scripture cannot produce authorized ministers of God, nor authority to preach, nor are they bringing new revelations to a living Church.”
• April 1953 General Conference
  • Perfection Through Obedience
    • “I believe we should be more cognizant of the fact that we need the first principles of the gospel every day of our lives. It is by these principles that we live.”
    • “It is the purpose of the Lord to bring us all back into his presence, if we will keep his commandments and enter into covenant with him and walk uprightly before him and serve him and keep his commandments all the days of our lives. Now, I am sure everyone here every day needs some repentance, and we need to have a remission of our sins, which comes by virtue of the fact that we repent and that we have been baptized into the Church. And above all, we need the Spirit and power of God. The older I grow, the more I am convinced that the chief thing that we do need, and the highest achievement in the world to which we can attain, is to be guided by the Spirit of God. We can do that by keeping his commandments and in no other way that I know of. The Lord has outlined that most wonderfully in the ninety-third section of the Doctrine and Covenants, referring to the operation of that principle and these principles of the gospel that have been given to us. He speaks of the reference in John, to the Lord Jesus Christ as having become perfect by receiving grace upon grace and advancing from grace to grace until he had a fullness.”
    • “It is my conviction that we pay tithing with faith and not with money, because when a man has so much money that he has a large tithing, he can’t pay tithing. He has too much money and too little faith to pay tithing, and just feels he can’t afford it. I know a man who must have earned twenty-five thousand dollars or fifty thousand dollars a year, and he sent in a little pittance of three hundred dollars so that he would be on the tithing list. That wasn’t tithing. I won’t say what it was.”
• October 1952 General Conference
  • The Gospel Embodies All Truth
    • “Truth is of God and only truth tends towards salvation. There is no power in error except to destroy, to spoil, to bring sorrow and regret and failure. We often speak and frequently dwell upon the need for salvation. May we assume that we accept the truth, that we need salvation. We are here in the earth, banished from the presence of God until we come back into his presence through faith and through his gospel and through obedience. We can only come there through principles of truth and righteousness. We can come back into his presence, where we belong, only by following the plan that he has outlined for us. No one else could outline it. That is his prerogative.”
    • “God has prescribed the principles that will save us and exalt us in his presence, and they are embodied in the teachings of the Church. And we are taught these principles because they are necessary for our salvation. I would that all our young people would study the doctrines of this Church faithfully, be constant readers of its scriptures, and know what is truth. Then when they go forth in the world, in their affairs, in college, in their occupations, they would have standards by which to judge all things; and if any things are contacted in their lives that do not conform to the teachings of this Church, that are contrary to it and the teachings and principles of the gospel, then those things should be rejected or laid on the shelf. They should not be adopted.”
    • “If there is anyone who wants to go to college and hasn’t the spiritual capacity to take on a college education without losing his faith, he had better stay on the farm and do his duty in the Church and serve his fellow men and serve God and grow in knowledge and intelligence and power there, because all the things he might get in colleges do not lead to intelligence. If a thing is true, it does. If it isn’t true, it does not.”
• April 1952 General Conference
  • A New Call
    • “The power of God unto the salvation of his children is here in the world today; and through the ministrations of these young men of the Church, in their humility and their faith, the heavens are opened; and the power of God is manifest for the healing of the sick as well as for the healing of sick souls and the giving of light to people in darkness.”
    • “Now I am called to a new position. You know how humble I feel and how small I feel. We have a wonderful age retirement plan in this Church. I have never believed in arbitrary age retirement. We grow younger in this Church as we work in it, and the age retirement plan goes in reverse. The older we get and the longer we labor in the Church the more there is that we can do.”
    • “I am happy to find myself in full accord with all that this Church is and all that it does. Its divine leader, Jesus Christ, is my leader and my Lord. Its leaders on this earth are my leaders. The principles of this Church are my principles. The objectives of this Church are my objectives. The welfare of this Church is my welfare.”

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