Charles W. Penrose

Charles W. Penrose

First Counselor in the First Presidency (March 10, 1921 – May 16, 1925)

Second Counselor in the First Presidency (December 7, 1911 – March 10, 1921)

Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (July 7, 1904 – May 16, 1925)

General Conference Addresses

April 1924 General Conference
- Onward and Upward
  - “This work is onward and upward, and it will be forever and ever. It will not be taken away from the earth again, it is here to stay. It will abide. It will prevail. It will overcome all its foes, all its obstacles, all its difficulties, and the Lord will inspire his servants, as he raises them up for the peculiar and special work in which they are to be engaged.”
October 1923 General Conference
- Living the Gospel
  - “Let us be acquainted with what the Lord has revealed, and take it into our souls. Let us realize and feel that we are a part of this work, a true and living and active working part.”
  - “We can’t let the rest of the world go by; we must go to all the world and preach the gospel, to every creature, to every kindred and tongue and family and person, so far as we can reach them.”
April 1923 General Conference
- The Church
  - “I know this Church and organization is different from anything else in the world. It is of God and not of man. That which is of man, so far as it is of man, is from men who are ordained and appointed to represent the Lord, to act in his holy name, under the direction of his authority and priesthood, and I testify to you that it shall continue to abide though many of us will pass away.”
  - “I rejoice today in the truth. I rejoice in the testimony of Jesus. I rejoice in the knowledge that Christ did give me my freedom. I am free.”
October 1922 General Conference
- Our Duties
  - “I am ready to wear myself out in the service of God, to try to carry out the admonition that we are to be willing to do all things, sacrifice all things, even to the laying down of our lives, if necessary, for this great work, and it is worth it, it is worth all that and a great deal more. It is worth all our being, is this work that we are engaged in.”
April 1922 General Conference
- A Great Many Truths
  - “I have been engaged in preaching His name for a great many years, and during all that time I found that name to have power in it, power in it for good, power in it to rebuke evil, power to overcome darkness and to spread light, and it carries the spirit of health and life and light and is the name given under heaven, and the only one, whereby man can be saved. Do not forget it, brethren; but use it with prudence and with faith and with reverence. Men use it sometimes by way of cursing, but they have no right to do so, and it is a wrong thing to do; but because they misuse it, there is no reason why we should drop it.”
October 1921 General Conference
- Faith
  - “That is the beginning of our religion, faith, real faith in the true and living God. Faith in a false god does not amount to much.”
  - “There is a link between every man ordained to the Priesthood and his God, and that link ought not to be sundered, it ought not to be weakened. We should live in harmony, in union, in communion, with him who is our living Head, and he will not forsake us either in days of trouble or pain or sickness or anything else.”
April 1921 General Conference
- The Godhead
  - “I do not know anything about that, because the Lord has not revealed it ; and if our brethren, while trying to be wise when they are not always so, would leave out of their preachings and their speculations that which they think may be in the future, but do not know, there will be a good deal of contention avoided.”
- Priesthood and Revelation
  - “Every sensible, every sane person, has a right to the guidance of that spirit if he will seek for it in the right way and be obedient to its whisperings and its teachings.”
  - “The sisters are not ordained to any office in the Priesthood and there is authority in the Church which they cannot exercise ; it does not belong to them ; they cannot do that properly any more than they can change themselves into a man. Now, sisters, do not take the idea that I wish to convey that you have no blessings or authority or power belonging to the Priesthood. When you are sealed to a man of God who holds if and who, by overcoming, inherits the fulness of the glory of God, you will share that with him if you are fit for it, and I guess you will be.”
October 1920 General Conference
- Forgive One Another
  - “If we are offended with any one, if we feel that somebody has grieved us or oppressed us, done us some wrong, let us forgive them in our hearts, if we want to be called saints of the Most High and so regarded by the powers on high.”
  - “I have seen people who were required to forgive one another arise and shake hands, and then go forth with the same spirit of bitterness in their souls that they had in the beginning, so that their feelings of repentance and charity were not genuine and did not count.”
  - “Tell the truth as you understand it before the Lord, but not the whole truth, if that truth includes abusing the other party. Do not misrepresent what other people believe, and say a certain party believes this. Do not do that.”
  - “God is love, and his tender mercies are over all his works. He loves us, and will lead us and will save us if we will keep his commandments and walk in his ways, and the time will come when we will meet together in his eternal presence, and all that belongs to us we shall get, everything.”
April 1920 General Conference
- Faith in Christ
  - “The real efficacious prayer must be accompanied by faith, which is the strength and power of it; and by faith we can draw near to him who is our living Head. And by faith we can accomplish the work set us to do, no matter what it may be.”
  - “Do not be afraid to use reverently the name of Christ. He uses it continually.”
  - “There is power in the name of Jesus Christ. Demons tremble at that name. They recognize it. But when we, in a slip-shod way, use the name of Jesus, and say nothing about Christ, I don’t know that it has so much power and influence.”
October 1919 General Conference
- Opposing Evil
  - “I see nothing in any of the revelations of God, ancient or modern, that should stop or hinder in any way proper efforts made for the bringing together of the nations of the earth in a bond of peace.”
  - “Shall we cease from our efforts against evil because evils will abound and because evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse, as predicted by the Savior? Are we not to take steps to try and check the evil?”
  - “Let us prepare ourselves for the day, in our hearts, in our spirits, in our works, in our efforts, let us combine for mutual good and for the good of the world, and understand that the destiny of this great nation, which the Lord has raised up, is to carry the gospel of freedom, of liberty, of union, of brotherly love into all the nations of the earth, if they will receive it, and a great many will.”
June 1919 General Conference
- The Solemn Assembly
  - “The time will come when the priesthood behind the veil will minister personally in the temples of God to men holding the priesthood in the flesh, revealing matters that are needful to be known concerning the departed that the work being performed for the dead, as well as for the living may go on and be accomplished and perfected properly, and that we may grow up together in Jesus the Christ, who is our living head.”
  - “Why waste your time, your talents, your means, your influence in following something that will perish and pass away, when you could devote yourselves to a thing that will stand forever?”
October 1918 General Conference
- The Work of the Saints
  - “We are not bound to receive every book that somebody publishes with his own personal views and notions to lead people astray and to glorify himself. Every man should learn his duty from that which God has revealed, and there is plenty revealed to enable us to understand our callings, our duties, our powers in the priesthood, and its limits.”
  - “This is our mission on the earth, to labor for the salvation of souls, to do good and fear not, to stand, each man and woman in his or her lot and place, and labor for the redemption of the race, under the direction of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Master.”
  - “Repentance is right, and encouragement of repentance is right, and the forgiving of sinners is right. God forgives sin when people properly repent.”
April 1918 General Conference
- Knowledge
  - “Every Latter-day Saint, every man and woman and boy and girl born in the covenant or who has received it, is under obligations to do all that is possible for the sending forth of the word of the Lord to all the nations of the earth.”
  - “Liberty to think, liberty to read, liberty to have theories and notions and ideas; but, my brethren, it isn’t your province nor mine to introduce theories into the Church that are not in accordance with the revelations that have been given.”
  - “If it is really science that they produce, something demonstrated, something proved to be true, that is all right, and there is not a doctrine of our Church that I can find that comes in direct conflict or contradiction to the sciences of the times if they are sciences, but a great deal of that which is called science is only philosophy, and much of it speculative philosophy, and these ideas change with the ages, as we can see by reference to what has been called science in times that are past.”
October 1917 General Conference
- Prophetic Leadership
  - “Circumstances change, and a change of instructions becomes necessary. As the different circumstances arise different policies have to be engaged in, and when the man that stands at the head leads out in any direction in regard to these matters, we will be perfectly safe in following him.”
  - “The Lord has told us what we may do in our own cases when our enemies come upon us, we are to forgive them if they repent. If they do not repent we are to forgive them two, three and even four times, but when they continue in their evil work we are not to submit, to allow ourselves and our liberties to be trampled under foot.”
April 1917 General Conference
- Following Christ
  - “Jesus was no milksop. He was not to be trampled under foot. He was ready to submit when the time came for his martyrdom, and he was to be nailed on the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of the world, but he was ready at any time to stand up for his rights like a man.”
October 1916 General Conference
- A Firm Foundation
  - “While we do not worship Joseph Smith, we do worship, with him, the great Eternal Father, the great Elohim.”
  - “If our brethren, and some few of our sisters, perhaps, would quit this quibbling, when they search, when they seek, they will be sure to find. If they are seeking for contradictions, they will find them, but if they are seeking for the word of life, they will find it, and they will rejoice therein, and everything will be clear and plain before their minds.”
  - “You can always find something that you are seeking for. If you are seeking for the good, you will find it; if you are seeking for the bad, you will find it, sure enough, if you keep on.”
  - “Forgive one another of all our faults, as the Lord has commanded us, in our hearts, not merely with our lips, but in our hearts, and if we do not forgive one another, in our hearts, the Lord says we commit the greater sin.”
  - “The President of this Church doesn’t need to back up what he says by ancient Scripture. He has the word of the Lord to us in this dispensation, just as the prophets of old had to the people among whom they lived.”
April 1916 General Conference
- Gospel Topics
  - “There are gods many and lords many, but unto us, for our obedience and our worship, and our adherence to His word, there is one living and true God the Creator of this and many other worlds, and we look to Him as the author of our life, by and through His Beloved Son, who was with Him from the beginning.”
  - “God help us to see and understand the truth and to avoid error! And don’t let us be too strong in our feelings in regard to our opinions of matters. Let us try to be right.”
October 1915 General Conference
- Drawing Near to God
  - “We are here for a purpose and an object and He designs our progress, our development into the fulness of His own image and likeness and power and glory.”
  - “We are all foolish, I suppose, to some extent, weak, for we are human; but we should understand that God is our Father, and fathers do not always give to their children everything they ask for.”
April 1915 General Conference
- The Atonement
  - “It is important that we should know something about the Being whom we worship—the Father, for it is the Father whom we worship. We do not pray to the Son nor to the Holy Ghost; we pray to the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son. under the influence and guidance of the Holy Ghost.”
October 1914 General Conference
- A Prayer for Peace
  - “We pray that liberty may come out of this oppression, that freedom may come out of this strife; and wilt Thou grant that in Thy divine providence all things may conspire together for good, so that righteousness may be established, that the fruit of righteousness, which is peace, may be enjoyed.”
- Salvation of the Dead
  - “If we want to be real Christians we should find out what Christ taught, find out what He showed in His personality and character, that as He is we may be: that we may meet Him face to. face, that we may be one with Him in time and in eternity.”
  - “Satan can’t force us, but we walk in the ways of Satan when we yield to him, and we walk in the ways of God when we yield to Him, and we shall find when we get to understand all of God’s purposes concerning this earth, and other worlds that He has created, that these intelligences which are born of Him are placed in these opposing conditions that they may manifest what they are fit for in the great future, and a place will be found for everyone and everyone will find his place in the vast Eternity to which we are all hastening.”
  - “If we seek after the good, good will come to us. If we reach up to the Eternal Father for His light and guidance and power it will come to us. If we yield to the power of that Evil One and walk in the ways of the wicked and yield ourselves to sin and are imbued with the spirit of the Adversary, then we will go down to darkness and to death.”
- Church Meetings
  - “Now, in regard to having so many meetings, we are told by a great number of our brethren that about every night in the week they have some duty to perform, either as teachers or attending priesthood meetings or class meetings or some other meetings connected with the wards of the Church in which they reside. I would say then if that is the case, confine your time and your talents and your labor and work to the institutions of the Church. There is no need to go outside into other organizations established for other than Church purposes.”
April 1914 General Conference
- Afflictions and Growth
  - “You can progress downward as well as progress upward, but our prize, the prize and mark of our high calling is in Christ Jesus; in His doctrine, in His principles, in His glorious example.”
  - “If we serve the Lord with all our hearts, and place His work first in our souls, and practise righteousness according to the pattern that God reveals, everything that is of worth in all the eternities, throughout all the regions of space, everything that is good and beautiful and glorious and happifying that makes for progress, for intelligence, for light, for wisdom, for power and for dominion will be ours.”
  - “For instance, “If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off.” But He did not mean that to apply literally to the physical hand. It was the spirit of it that was intended. If we have anybody in the Church who will not obey the laws of the Church, who will transgress the commandments of God, though that person may be one with authority and power, having done a great deal of good and with a great deal of influence, even if we should regard him as the right hand of the ward or stake where he belongs, yet if he will not be obedient to the laws of Christ, he has to be severed from the Church.”
October 1913 General Conference
- Harmony with Diety
  - “When we learn a truth, whether it relates to the heavens or the earth, it becomes our duty to make it a part of ourselves and to carry it out in our practical lives, to bring it down to our present conditions and circumstances.”
  - “In the home, where we dwell, that is the place where we should be religious. Be kind and affectionate one toward another, bear with each other’s infirmities and weaknesses, and overlook the little flaws that you may see in each other’s character, and observe the good things.”
  - “The world is made up of little things, and comfort and joy and salvation are made up of little things, things that are necessary, things that are expedient.”
April 1913 General Conference
- Firm in the Faith
  - “There are various false influences abroad, and they seek to enter into the Church of Christ, and to lead people astray, and sometimes individuals will be so imbued with the importance of that which they have received—as they believe by revelation from God—that they begin to assume authority over others, and endeavor to lead them away, to follow them into the ways of darkness, into superstition, into folly and into neglect to observe the commandment that God gave in the beginning of the Church.”
  - “No matter who may come, to us pretending to have the word of the Lord, pretending to have received revelations or visions or dreams to guide us in anything, whether it be temporal or spiritual. You may know assuredly, the Lord says, that it is not of Him, because it does not come through the channel that He has appointed.”
October 1912 General Conference
- Truth and Charity
  - “God speaks and the whole heavens respond. If anything discordant arises, means are at hand to remove it from the midst of the assembled hosts on high, so that harmony and union and concord and understanding and knowledge are enjoyed by the great body of the Saints and sons and daughters of God.”
  - “Every principle that the Lord has revealed to us in the latter days is to be counted among the essentials, and as I have said, I do not know anything that the Lord has revealed, that God has made manifest to us, which is non-essential.”
April 1912 General Conference
- Truth and Right
  - “There is a great deal of light in the world in regard to many things that are not practiced.”
  - “It is one thing to learn the truth and another thing to live by it.”
October 1911 General Conference
- Eternal Life
  - “Truth never changes. Our conception of a truth may change as we grow in wisdom and understanding, and in clearness of spiritual vision. That which appeared to us to be true at one time we may find out later to be incorrect, and so it is we who change, and not the truth that changes.”
April 1911 General Conference
- Marriage and Divorce
  - “Under the law of God a man and woman should be joined together for all eternity, she to be bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, spirit answering to spirit, soul to soul, joined together with an eternal bond, to exist in hfe, in death, in the resurrection, and throughout the countless ages of eternity; this was the union at “the beginning;” that is the right kind of marriage, and the marriage that we Latter-day Saints should support and sustain and teach to our children, that they may enter into it prepared to gain the benefits thereof.”
- Closing Exhortation
  - “When the time comes show by your acts and by your votes whether you are on the Lord’s side or on the other. You cannot be on both sides at the same time.”
October 1910 General Conference
- Ordinances
  - “While every man and every woman should have the privilege of expressing their belief, of conveying their ideas in regard to religion, as well as to philosophy and to science, and anything and everything which will upbuild humanity, while they should have this freedom everywhere, and people should be willing to listen to their voices when they are able to convey any principle of truth, they lack that divine authority which God gave to His servants in ancient times and which, I am pleased to know, He has restored in the day and age in which we live.”
  - “It is one thing to preach the doctrine that Jesus is the Christ, and another thing to be authorized to administer in His name.”
October 1906 General Conference
- Duties of Parents
  - “A mission has been entrusted to the people of this Church, and that is, to publish the gospel of peace to the ends of the earth, to declare the truth, to bear witness that God has spoken again from the heavens, that He has restored the authority of the holy Apostleship and Priesthood.”
  - “Our warfare is with these powers that are behind the veil; and the only way to fight them effectually is to bar them from our souls, and to teach our children the principles of eternal life, that they may not become subject to these evil powers.”
April 1906 General Conference
- Harmony in the Church
  - “If it were not for the pride of the world, if it were not for the fear of the scoffs and scorn of men, I am fully presuaded that many thousands who have heard the testimony of the Elders would come forward and embrace the Gospel and rejoice with us in its glorious privileges.”
  - “I wish to bear my testimony to this congregation that Jesus Christ is still with His people, with His priesthood, with His servants upon whom He has conferred authority to minister in His name. Every key of power and authority given to the Prophet Joseph Smith has been handed down to his successors, and is now vested in the man who stands at our head.”
  - “When we are reviled against, when our enemies speak evil of us, when they try to do us injury, we should possess our souls in patience and wait for the Lord to move. Those who will not repent we should leave in His hands.”
October 1905 General Conference
- The Work of God Will Continue
  - “Our testimony is that he lived and died a prophet of God, and that he sealed his testimony with his blood. The Lord promised that the keys should not be taken from him while he lived, inasmuch as he obeyed His ordinances, so when the Prophet Joseph was taken away, the keys were with him, as the Lord promised they should be, both in this world and in the world to come.”
  - “Now, as to this Church—the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—the Lord laid its foundations broad and deep and high. He made it impregnable. Why? Because He had ordained in the beginning that it should be perpetual, that it should not be overcome, that it should not be left to another people, that the keys of the priesthood should continue and abide until Christ should come and reign over the earth.”
April 1905 General Conference
- The Body and the Spirit
  - “The religion you and I have embraced, my brethren and sisters, is not a mere psalm-singing, praying and preaching religion. It is a religion that comes to us as we are, as men and women, as beings living on the earth in the flesh, as persons who have to do with the things of time as well as the things of eternity.”
  - “There are two primary divisions, we may say, in the universe —spirt and matter; or, as the Lord calls them, spirit and element. God has to do with both. He organized both, He rules over both, and gives laws in relation to both. And it is only by the eternal, inseparable union of the spirit and and the material, or elementary that perfect happiness can come.”
  - “Do right to one another. Let no man infringe upon the rights of his neighbor; regard every man’s rights as sacred, understanding that we are all the children of our heavenly Father, all brethren and sisters, whether we are Latter-day Saints or latter-day sinners; but more especially should our love and affection and help be extended to the household of faith, to those who have been baptized into Christ, and have put on Christ, and have become part of Him.”
  - “Abraham paid tithes. To whom? To Melchisedek, the priest of the Most High God. And we have no account anywhere of Abraham demanding an account of how Melchisedek handled the tithes.”
October 1904 General Conference
- Praise for the Worthy
  - “This is the work of God, it is true, the Lord has had to call to His aid on earth many of His sons and daughters to assist in the establishment of the latter-day kingdom, and that He now has on Mount Zion many who will be saviors of men. Yet the kingdom is the Lord’s, the work is His, and to Him be the praise and the glory. However, I would not detract in the least from the praise that is due to the faithful laborers in this cause.”
  - “I hope that the sheep of Israel who are here today, and those whom they represent, are able to distinguish between the voice of the good shepherd and the voice of the stranger, and that they will never be led aside from the path in which they should walk, but that they will keep their eye upon the prize of the mark of their high calling in Christ Jesus, and press forward on the strait and the narrow way that leadeth unto eternal lives, and that they will not be turned to the right hand nor to the left by the voice of the stranger.”
  - “The gospel that we have received is a gospel of liberty, but not of license.”
  - “Treat our friends who appear to be our enemies with kindness, with charity and with brotherly love. Let us not get angry with them. Sometimes that spirit naturally arises in our hearts, and we feel it is all very well to say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do;” but how about those who do know what they do? How about those who willfully, intentionally and maliciously malign our brethren, distort the truth, and seek to bring trouble and injury upon the Latter-day Saints? What about them? Just leave them in the hands of the Lord, and do not allow irritation to arise in your breasts for that is what they desire, but let us in patience possess our souls, as Christ commanded.”

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