Antoine R. Ivins

Antoine R. Ivins

First Council of the Seventy (October 4, 1931 – October 18, 1967)

General Conference Addresses

October 1963 General Conference
- The Need for Faith
  - “Service, then, becomes a measuring stick for faith. If men serve faithfully and willingly, it is an indication of faith.”
  - “It need not be offensive to suggest to a person that he change his ways to be more happy. That is what repentance means: a Godly sorrow for acts, improper or even just not wisely performed, and a change to a life filled with proper and correctly performed activities. This not only results in one’s contentment and happiness but increases his interest in others and his service in their behalf. This change brings about a closer relationship with the Spirit of the Lord under whose influence one corrects his private life and his social relationships. Why should it be offensive to a person to be told that if he will, of his own volition, prove victor over his unfortunate habits, he will be happier and more useful?”
April 1963 General Conference
- Sincere Devotion—A Willing Heart
  - “If we serve with the idea that good service will bring promotion, we may be disappointed. If we serve with a willing heart because we love people and love to help them, the Lord will make us happy.”
April 1962 General Conference
- Responsibility and the Priesthood
  - “I am not so much worried about what other people do not do, as I am about what we do not do. We have the power as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to influence young people. Many of us do not appreciate and perhaps do not understand this, and we lose, for one reason or another, the service of many wonderful young men and young women in the Church. We have now a large group of men in the Melchizedek Priesthood who do not appear to appreciate their opportunities and their responsibilities.”
  - “When we realize through receiving a testimony, which comes from the Spirit of God, our relationship to God, our obligation to God our Father and our obligation to each other in the Church organization, then we devote ourselves to that service. Without a testimony we do little.”
October 1961 General Conference
- Bearing Testimony
  - “I think that all of the blessings that are promised to us throughout the Church are dependent upon our efforts to help them come to pass. I never have felt that a patriarchal blessing was a prediction as to what must come to pass, but what might come to pass if we would help conditions so that those things could be realized.”
April 1961 General Conference
- Raising Children
  - “Brethren and sisters, if we can just get out of my testimony a feeling that we do have a responsibility to these people and that the fathers and mothers have a real responsibility to love each other and love their children into correct and proper living and service in the Church, I will be happy that the President called me to bear my testimony to you.”
October 1960 General Conference
- To Magnify the Priesthood
  - “I honestly believe, brethren and sisters, that if we can properly instill into our own hearts and the hearts of our children this testimony to the degree that it will impel them to live true to the principles of the gospel, to the covenants that they have made in the waters of baptism and in the temples of God, and to the promises that are implied, if not actually made, when one receives the priesthood, that the Church will never be in danger.”
April 1960 General Conference
- Preparing for Missions
  - “Every boy who expects to go on a mission, every boy or girl who aspires to a mission, should, through the way he lives and through his study and his faith and prayer, come to a position so that he can testify to those things before he goes into the mission field.”
October 1959 General Conference
- The Constitution
  - “I fear, brethren and sisters, that we approach these topics with too much apathy. We hardly realize the power that there is in the organization which we have. Even though it be small in numbers compared to the total population of the United States, it could exercise a tremendous influence, and does, as a matter of fact, for righteousness throughout the country.”
April 1959 General Conference
- Have Faith and Be Loyal
  - “If we can develop the faith that is necessary for the proper accomplishment of our responsibilities and the realization of the covenants which we have made, it will be a wonderful thing.”
October 1958 General Conference
- Missionary Responsibility
  - “It is the duty of the older members, the fathers, uncles, grandfathers, cousins, and so forth, who have this testimony in their hearts, to establish it in the hearts of these growing young men, so that at such time as they may come to us and offer their services that they may have a living testimony that Christ is the Son of God, that the Church was authoritatively organized, that the priesthood is in the earth, all of which is essential to the exaltation of men.”
April 1958 General Conference
- The Priesthood of the Covenant
  - “Now it is our duty, the duty of those of us who strive to do it, to help others to realize the importance of it and then give aid and succor where it is necessary to strengthen in their determination these people who have not yet seen fit to qualify for all these blessings.”
April 1957 General Conference
- To Gain a Testimony
  - “Testimony! I have come to believe that any person who has an honest testimony will strive to the utmost of his ability to live true to the teachings that have come to us from our Heavenly Father through the revelations of Jesus Christ, given to the leadership of this Church.”
October 1956 General Conference
- Sanctify Yourselves
  - “Spiritual aid and succor is more important than temporal aid at times. We should extend both, of course, but most certainly, if we love our neighbor, we are going to extend to him our spiritual aid and comfort in the spirit of mercy.”
April 1956 General Conference
- The Power of the Priesthood
  - “We cannot dream ourselves into exaltation. Dreams have no value unless they prove to be incentives for greater activity. It is fine to dream about the possibilities of life, but until we do something about it, those dreams are useless.”
October 1955 General Conference
- For Time and Eternity
  - “It seems to me that the duty of teaching people who are approaching marriageable age, the advantages of celestial and eternal marriage, first, and always, is with the parents. Then I wonder how parents who have not availed themselves of that privilege and who hardly live so as to impress their children with the desirability of perpetuating the marriage relationship, can expect so to impress their children. I have come to decide, brethren and sisters, that the place to start is not with the young folk, but with the old folk, to get the fathers and mothers of young people fully to appreciate the advantages, the wonderful advantages of celestial marriage, and then to present to their growing children an example which will make marriage, a marriage for eternity, attractive to them.”
  - “If fathers and mothers and bishops and auxiliary associations should combine in a serious effort to teach this truth, I believe we could make it so attractive that the evils which befall many of our young people would cease to be attractive to them, and they would develop a strength in their youth which would carry them through all their future lives in honorable service to God, our Heavenly Father, and in righteous living.”
April 1955 General Conference
- What Is Spirituality
  - “When they were talking about detours this morning, I wondered if many of us might not be sleepwalkers; if we do not walk around in our sleep, and all at once wake up to find out that the team has taken us off on the wrong road. Then we have to turn around. I believe, in the straight and narrow road there are no chuckholes. If they are there, they are the chuckholes that we ourselves have built for ourselves. Brethren and sisters, it is sixty years ago since father and I had that experience. It is about fifty-nine years ago since we went to Mexico. During that time I have had opportunity to watch the Church and its directing Authorities and to note its progress. It is twenty-four years since I read in the newspaper one day that I had a new assignment. During those twenty-four years Sister Ivins and I have been moving about among the stakes of the Church and in the missions, trying to kindle or rekindle the Spirit of God in the hearts of the members of the Church.”
  - “It should be our purpose so to combine the Spirit of God with our daily undertakings that we can ask upon everything we undertake to do, the blessing of God, our Heavenly Father.”
  - “Spirituality is not a thing that you can go to the market and buy with dollars and cents and carry home in a basket, but it is a thing which you can absorb in a gathering like this. It has to be absorbed. It cannot be bought. It cannot be done up in packages and handed to a neighbor. It must be absorbed by him through the emanations of our own spirits.”
October 1954 General Conference
- Magnifying Our Calling
  - “The only way to get this Spirit that I know of is to work for it. The Lord has said if we would do the things he has told us to do, we will know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.”
  - “We cannot wish ourselves into success; praying will help; but there must be activity if we magnify this calling.”
April 1954 General Conference
- With Faith in God
  - “It seems to me that the purpose of the family relationship is to furnish bodies to spirits who are waiting the opportunity to tabernacle in the flesh. I have come to think that when we assume the obligation of offering such a tabernacle, we should be equipped, if possible, to produce a perfect one, and to that end our lives must be well-nigh perfect as to chastity and moral purpose.”
  - “There is nothing that will tend to make a marriage happier than faith in each other, and there is I think, that will produce greater faith than the testimony of each to the other, of a pure previous life.”
  - “Our efforts should be to so live that we will have claim upon our heavenly Father for his Spirit to help us over these rough places, so that the example we set to our growing children, and to their children, when they come along, will be one above reproach. The family, we have been told, is the foundation stone of our society. It is not brought together just that we may enjoy each other’s association here. As I have suggested, it has a higher, more spiritual purpose, and the relationships that are entered into in the family should always be directed by the Spirit of God. If that could be, we would always be happy in that relationship, and then we would have a solidarity in our organization that would astound the world.”
October 1953 General Conference
- Seeking Knowledge
  - “I glory in the fact that the Church throws open to me all of the books that have been written, if I care to delve into them. I have faith that if I delve, seeking the Spirit of God in my teaching, I will never find anything that will upset and disturb my faith in God and the restoration of the gospel.”
April 1953 General Conference
- Be Thou an Example of the Believers
  - “The resurrection of Jesus Christ verified the statement that he was and is the Son of God, and that must have been the theme of every devout Christian of that day, just as it must be today. Of course, they would amplify it, after bearing testimony that Christ had risen, that he was the Son of God, that he was born of Mary by miraculous means, then they would pass on to his teachings as to how men and women should live to gain an exaltation in the kingdom of God.”
  - “Of course when we bear that testimony to others who have not received it, we should do it in all charity, but we should do it with spirit, fearlessly, courageously, and never doubting.”
October 1952 General Conference
- Upon This Rock
  - “Now if we have that testimony, and if we are loyal to that testimony, it implies that we should serve the Church. There are many ways of doing this—some in the missionary service, some in local presidencies, some as ward teachers, and many other ways. But today I have in mind another type of service. It is a service which impels one to reach down into his pocket, to take therefrom the funds that he might use for his pleasure and satisfaction and bestow them upon the Church for its benevolent purposes.”
April 1952 General Conference
- Today’s Great Need Is Faith
  - “Sometimes, as fathers and mothers, we do not realize that responsibility. We take children more or less as a matter of fact; we do not realize that they are the sons and daughters of God, and that in their care and custody, we are the representatives of God, our Heavenly Father. If we could sense that fully, I am sure that we would be more serious in the care and direction which we give to the life of our children.”
  - “Without faith, there can be no love between a man and a wife. Without faith there can be no love between a son and a father. Faith must go in both directions, it seems to me.”
October 1951 General Conference
- Out of Ourselves
  - “Now we are gathered here today to give our testimony to each other and to stimulate our faith in so doing. If we can leave this conference feeling a little more loyalty to the Church, with a little stronger resolution to do our duty, those of us who have cause for it, and a little greater determination to repent and correct our lives, even though there be but a few that need that last admonition, the conference will be well worth while. I trust that we may have just that result, that as we go away we may know better our duty and have a greater determination to serve.”
  - “Men are avaricious; they are selfish; they are ambitious for power. They have nearly all of the attributes which, if left unbridled, lead to these terrible consequences. It is only the Spirit of God and Christ coming into the heart of man that can change his nature so that he will serve properly his fellow men. That, I think, is the purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that we should learn that great commandment of God, the second, that we should love our fellows as we love ourselves.”
April 1951 General Conference
- The Power of the Gospel
  - “There is, in the gospel of Jesus Christ, a power that you can’t realize any other place. It breaks down all the barriers of nationality, of race hatreds, and all the enmities that go between peoples because of their selfishness, once we accept it into our lives and apply it.”
October 1950 General Conference
- Developing Faith
  - “In trying to encourage others, I gain courage, strength, and faith. It is in a spirit of love that I minister and help those that need it, if I can, realizing at the same time that I get joy and satisfaction out of it.”
  - “Pay attention to today. Yesterday has gone. It will never come back. Today is always with us so long as we live. Tomorrow is a hope only, so today we must look to ourselves, to our behavior, look to our faith in ourselves and in God.”
April 1950 General Conference
- The Seventies
  - “What should they be, these men in the priesthood, in order to be worthy of it? They should not only have full faith in the principles of the gospel, know that God lives, and that he instituted this great organization, but they should also live so as to be exemplary and useful men in their communities.”
  - “If we are honest and diligent, we must also be dependable. We must be such men that when the leaders of the Church assign us a responsibility and we say we will accept it, they may rest assured that we will do it, and the leaders will have no more worry about it.”
October 1949 General Conference
- Foundation for Faith
  - “When I was in Tennessee one time, a good Methodist asked me if we thought we were the only people, to which I replied that God loves all people and will reward them as they live. We are, however, the custodians of his priesthood, and that priesthood is essential to the performance of the ordinances that he has set up as essential to our exaltation in his kingdom.”
  - “You find people who leave the Church because, sometimes, they think the bishops and stake presidents do not understand them. They do not think of these broad and basic things, faith in God; faith in the revealed word as it has come from the Prophet Joseph Smith, that he was actually an inspired servant of God; faith in the appointed leaders who have followed him with an unbroken line of authority to minister in these things. They are the important things, it seems to me, brethren and sisters, and when we think Mormonism, if you want to call it that, when we think of the gospel, it seems to me that those basic things are the ones that we should think of and appreciate, and we should not worry too much about the prohibitions that it gives us. There is not a single one of them that is not set up for the benefit and blessing of men. It is true that many men are frail and have great difficulty in observing all of those things, but they should not let their failure to observe them, their lack of power to observe them, drive them out of the Church, because in other sections they are given liberty and license that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints cannot condone.”
April 1949 General Conference
- Gospel Positives
  - “We all hold dear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Some of us apply it rather narrowly in our lives but it is a broad, general plan for the development of mankind in the earth.”
  - “There has been reference made to the fact that there is good and evil in the world, and that is true. It is much like it is with this body of ours. Every muscle in the body has an opposing one, but I call to your attention the fact that every bit of work that the body does is the result of a positively acting muscle, and no work whatever is ever done by a relaxing one. We should be that way in our lives. We should interpret the gospel into daily activities.”
October 1948 General Conference
- Service
  - “I would like to be able to say that I always serve fox the sheer love of service. I don’t know whether I can honestly say that or not, but I hope I can. I would like to suggest that all of us who serve, serve for the same motive, out of sheer joy and love of service.”
  - “He must analyze himself, and he must bring his conduct into strict conformity with the teachings of the gospel, and if he can go to him and show him by the life he lives the benefits he gets out of activity in the Church, the chances are far greater of a conversion than if he has to apologize for his own conduct when he tries to teach the advantages of adhering to the teachings of the Church.”
  - “It is the duty and responsibility of every man and woman in the Church to show by the way he lives the values that are in the gospel.”
April 1948 General Conference
- My Peace I Leave With You
  - “If we could impress the governments of the nations of the earth with the fact that they should be unselfish, there would be peace, not only a peace that the world could enjoy, but an opportunity for man, himself, to realize in his heart that wonderful peace.”
  - “I feel worse over the thoughtless things I do and say to other people than I do over the things they say and do to me, and I would like to enjoy the Spirit of God to such an extent that I never would say or do a thing that would be detrimental to another.”
  - “I have been thinking of that lately a good deal, how can we approach the peace that Christ would leave with us? And I have come to the conclusion that if and when we enjoy it, it will be because we repent of our sins and purify our lives.”
  - “We cannot enjoy the Spirit of God in sinful living. And inasmuch as I feel that that peace is the most desirable thing in the world, then I feel that my duty and yours is to repent and purify our lives that we may have claim upon God, our Heavenly Father, for his Spirit. Once we get it, we will have that peace. And regardless of the uncertainties of our lives, we will not worry over them, but we will have the peace that comes from the realization that we are the children of God and that if our lives are holy in his sight, our exaltation and election will be sure, and that eternity is so much more important than mortality.”
October 1947 General Conference
- State of the Saints
  - “I grant you that unfortunate people must be taken care of by the rest of us who are more fortunate, but I still feel, as I have said before, that every able-bodied man, or a woman for that matter, who can sustain himself should do it as long as he has that power, that he may be useful in his community.”
October 1946 General Conference
- God is a God of Miracles
  - “I can’t bring myself to believe that those people were in any greater need of divine help than are people in our day. I can’t bring myself to believe, either, that they were any more dear to God their Heavenly Father, as his children, than we and our fathers and grandfathers. And I can’t bring myself to believe that we are any more unworthy of aid of God than they were. So to me, it seems a more or less proper thing and a natural thing, that God should so manifest himself.”
  - “To me that is the great and underlying reason for the restoration of the gospel in the latter days—the fact that people had come to misunderstand the personality of God; they had come to question his power of intervention in the affairs of men, and it was necessary that they should be taught again the things which they were taught in the testimony that was given at the baptism of Christ, and in the testimony that was given in the appearance of Christ to the Nephites. They were again to be taught that Christ is the Son of God. It is one of the most difficult things for sectarian peoples to accept because of the indoctrination that they have received over these many generations. That is one of the problems that your boys and your girls, young and old, have to present to the people in the mission fields.”
April 1946 General Conference
- Selfishness
  - “I see in that the simple statement that we should drive out of our hearts all selfishness, for until we get rid of selfishness we cannot well love our neighbors as we love ourselves.”
  - “We likewise could help to bring about that day; but we are human; we are intensely human; and self-preservation, we are told, is the first law of nature. There is selfishness in it, and it is because of the tremendous struggle that it will take to drive it out of our souls that the love of neighbor gained such prominence in the teachings of Christ. It is likely the greatest struggle we would have to make with ourselves to become absolutely unselfish. But the things we do, we expect to redound to our own honor and our own glory, and frequently we measure our willingness to perform them on that standard. It is not right.”
October 1945 General Conference
- Serving in the Church
  - “I once asked one of my friends what would happen if the President of the Church should die unexpectedly, and he said, “Nothing. It will go right forward.” And contrary to the expectations of many people in the Church, this transition has been made with absolute smoothness and without friction so far as I have been able to observe. It is a great and lasting testimony to me.”
  - “The gospel of Jesus Christ is the plan of life and salvation. It apples while we are here as well as after we shall leave this sphere. It is based on the correct principles that should govern the lives of men. It is the statement of those principles. The Church of God is the vehicle destined to carry into the lives of the people those principles and develop the people to eternal joy and happiness. It would be a sad commentary if this Church should not be so constructed that it could carry on from age to age and meet its opportunity. It has done so in the past. I have seen it work, myself, over a number of years.”
  - “My worry is not as to the Church so much as to how I shall serve it. If I can serve it faithfully and well, I shall be fortunate.”
April 1945 General Conference
- Comfort in Testimony
  - “I am glad for the testimony I have of the gospel of Jesus Christ and for the faith that it gives me, faith that the work which God initiated in this dispensation, through the instrumentality of the Prophet Joseph Smith, shall go on and on and on. I feel very insignificant as one of the cogs in the great machine which is to carry it forward, but I have gained through my observation and experience the faith that God will see it go forward, regardless of the fact that those of us who are here now will eventually lay down the burdens of life. I like to think of life as something that began before mortality and something that will go on after it; that death is but an incident in life, just as is birth, and I like to think that these companions of mine now are exercising an influence just as they did here. The sun rises in the morning, and we feel its warmth during the day. For us it sets in the evening, but when it sets for us, it warms another land. I feel that those fine men are doing that very thing, that through their personalities and the power that they gained through their experiences here, they are warming another land and helping another group of men and women. I am thankful for that faith, for it helps me over many difficult problems in life.”
  - “It is true, as has been said, that he who holds a lantern to light the footsteps of his friends, lights his own. In leading the people we see more clearly our own duties, our own responsibilities, and the pathway that we should follow. It is a great obligation, and I stand in fear and trembling before you and before God when I think of my responsibility in the position I occupy.”
October 1944 General Conference
- Cultivation of a Soul
  - “When we think of the soul of the Church, and the souls of the members of the Church, we naturally wonder what constitutes a well-developed, well-cultivated soul.”
  - “The first requisite of a well-cultivated soul is that he must love God and love his neighbor, be willing to serve God and serve his neighbor.”
  - “Forgiveness falls flat if it is of the mouth only and not of the heart, and if, after saying we forgive, we still carry in our minds the offense and hold it as an obstacle to the progress of the one whom we have forgiven.”
  - “There is too great a lack of honesty in the world today; too many do not think seriously enough of those problems and feel that so long as we can act within the technicalities of the law, we are sufficiently honest for the day. I question that very much, brethren. I think we all ought repeatedly to examine our hearts and our attitude, to make sure that we are honest.”
April 1944 General Conference
- Honest in our Dealings
  - “Some of us are not particularly careful in our dealings with each other, to be honest, and to give all a fair chance. I believe that in all of our dealings there is something to be gained, that a fair exchange is justified; for a fair exchange is no robbery, and that men can deal honestly and honorably with each other, so that there may be profits on both sides of the deal. I believe that we should strive to that end and purpose in all our labors.”
  - “Let us inspect our lives and see if we do not, all of us, have room to change our way of living. I feel that many of us do. We, who are here, are the priesthood of God.”
October 1943 General Conference
- Repentance
  - “Found that there are many people who are blessed with that interpretation of God, even among those who are not of our faith. They are pleased with the thought that God can be real, that there is no confusion in that scripture, after all, but that he is a definite personality. I taught them our method of faith in that type of God.”
  - “I believe as our many friends who have come, amongst us here inquire as to why Mormonism, that that, perhaps, shall be our first explanation that God is real, and truly a being, and that he has restored the gospel.”
  - “The law of repentance is a law that is ever active among us. I read that there is nothing so apparent to man as his own imperfection, that life is a struggle to reduce that imperfection. No man can compare himself with his ideals and be proud or haughty.”
  - “Repentance is the recognition of improper ways of living, the resolution to depart from them, and the final putting in the place of those bad ways of life the correct and superior methods of doing things. And if there is ever a day in the lives of anyone of us when that type of repentance does not have place, I will be surprised.”
  - “If we are going to forgive a person, being convinced of his sincere and honest repentance, offer reinstatement and forgiveness, we must forget. We must accept him as of today, with a clean heart and an honest motive, and we must give him his opportunity.”
April 1943 General Conference
- Servicemen
  - “If I had a son in this service, I think that thought would be a great comfort to me, that he was making the greatest sacrifice within his power for me and for you, for his brothers and sisters and for the generations of men unborn ; for we believe, brethren, that this is a conflict between two ideals of government, one coming from God, the other from the devil, and it will be a fight to the death eventually between those two ideals, the safety of future generations resting only with the successful termination of this conflict on the side of justice and honor.”
  - “We believe, we know, that the principles that we defend are those of righteous government inspired by God, and I hope that those of us who suffer in this great conflict may gain some comfort in this thought.”
October 1942 General Conference
- Seventies
  - “We try to impress upon every man who is ordained into the seventies quorums that that is his calling and that if he will not exercise that function he has no right to come into this group of men. They should be the missionaries of the Church.”
  - “There is no more magnificent work in the Church than to testify that Christ our Lord came to earth to redeem mankind.”
April 1942 General Conference
- Seventy’s Quorums
  - “Now, we hope that you brethren will remember that when they divide up into groups and go into their various wards, that they are still a quorum, under stake jurisdiction conjointly with that of the First Council of the Seventy that you will try to retain your interest in those seventies, and provide ways that they may occasionally get together in full quorums.”
  - “We have faith in you. We believe in you. We know that many of you, if not most of you, have passed through our organization, and we hope that you will be able to retain an interest in the seventies, that you will help them, and in doing that help us.”
October 1941 General Conference
- Religious Freedom
  - “In all our history we have claimed the right to worship God according to the dictates of our conscience, and we have added we extend to other people the same privilege. We have done that, we have offered in many instances the facilities of the Church for the worship of other denominations. We are a tolerant people, but I wish to suggest this morning that in the idea of toleration which we foster we should never think of adopting the practices of other people which are not according to our standards and beliefs.”
  - “We can never for a moment fail to recognize the fact that we do worship God in a different manner from most people ; that the type of God to which reference was just made is not the one we worship. We must always teach our children that the revelation to Joseph Smith of the identity and personality of God and Jesus Christ was real, and that as Latter-day Saints we should accept it as such. We should always teach them the necessity of living the standards of the Church—honesty, uprightness, integrity and virtues of many kinds, and chastity.”
  - “And in all our liberality and in all the concession that we may make to the belief of other people, allowing them to worship how, when, where, and what they may, we can never recede from our standards and adopt theirs, and be true to the trust that God has placed in us, and true to the heritage that we have received from our fathers and our mothers.”
April 1941 General Conference
- Temple Marriage
  - “Now, if we had an ideal condition prevailing, the only families not represented in the Melchizedek Priesthood would be the families of widows, because all of the men who are married would marry in the Temple, and all the young women who would marry would marry men who would marry in the Temple. But that does not seem to prevail.”
  - “There is nothing we could do, perhaps, that would help our young people to a better realization of their possibilities, than to so teach them that they would marry in the Temple. There is nothing that I have ever been more grateful for than that privilege, the privilege of being sealed to my wife for not only this life but for an eternity which is to come. The very sanctity and sacredness of that thing is one of the greatest supports that we could have in life. It is one of the very finest objectives that we could have in dealing with our young people. Now, to impress upon them the sanctity of it and the desirability of it, we have to teach them some other things.”
  - “There are far too many of us who fail to teach our young people the law of chastity. Nothing in a man’s life, or that of a woman, can give the satisfaction and the joy that comes from the realization that your life has been a chaste and upright life.”
  - “Let us never let a son or daughter of ours, who may be found in sin, be able to say to us that either for lack of teaching or by example we are responsible for his or her downfall.”
October 1940 General Conference
- Missionary Work
  - “As we move around we interview prospective missionaries who are to be called to go out into the world, and we ask them some very pertinent and sometimes very delicate questions, to find out just what their attitude is, and how they have lived. I find, to my utter pleasure and satisfaction, that almost without exception those young men and young women are able to tell me, and look me honestly in the eye when they do it, that in preparation for this great event in their lives they have lived clean and pure lives.”
  - “We do recognize the fact, however, that there are conditions within the Church which need rectifying. There are too few of us who are living fully and completely up to our opportunities.”
April 1940 General Conference
- Repentance
  - “I would that I knew how to do that in a way that it might appeal to those who needed it most. The great difficulty is that as we stand before you we realize that we are talking to faithful people, and the message that we would deliver perhaps never reaches the ears that we would like it to strike. That makes it necessary for each one of you to constitute yourself a missionary to carry to your friends the message of this Conference.”
  - “We must teach the poor always the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and in all the missionary fields in which it has been my experience to travel that has been customary. But I often wonder if there is not a field among the upper class people to which we might devote our attention with profit.”
October 1939 General Conference
- Glad to Be a Member
  - “I am glad that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because we believe in God and in his Son Jesus Christ. We believe them to be real personages; we believe that they are embodied spirits.”
  - “I like the idea of the Church that if you and I shall avail ourselves to the maximum of our possibilities, some time in eternity we may have the power of God, that there is no limit, if you will, to the progress that the spirit of man can attain to.”
  - “My constant prayer to God is that I may have that faith, that it may carry me through and over all of the obstacles that may arise.”
April 1939 General Conference
- A New Witness
  - “I have been more than pleased with the spirit of this conference, for I feel that every April Conference that we have should be a testimony to our Lord Jesus Christ. We are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our lives and our words should both be testimonies unto the world of the divinity of this organization, of the divinity of the Man, if you will permit me to call him a man, who caused it to come into existence.”
  - “Now, in order that the Book of Mormon shall be a new witness for God, I think we must first believe in the Book of Mormon. In order to believe in the Book of Mormon we have to believe in the Prophet Joseph Smith, to accept his testimony that he saw God and Jesus Christ, and that he was commissioned by divine interposition to restore to the world the Book of Mormon.”
  - “I find that by reading it through and studying it from that point of view, rather than one of history, I do have a feeling and a testimony when I get through with the book that it is divine. There is a spirit in it, there is a whispering to your soul, that an honest man cannot deny.”
  - “We are blessed as much, if not more, by the acceptance of certain things on faith than to accept them on reason.”
  - “Faith is greater than knowledge, time and time again. The devil knows the truth; he has not a spark of faith, or he would live according to it. Faith would impel him to change his life.”
  - “I believe it is the greatest lesson, or one of them, that we can possibly have for the conversion of the world. Some of our stake missionaries report their greatest success through study classes where the Book of Mormon is the subject matter. To me that is the great witness for God. It came to us unadulterated; it came to us through divine interposition, translated by the power of God, and when you read it your testimony comes not from the fact that you can put two and three together and get five, that you can reason from a premise to a conclusion and determine that there is no question as to its origin, but the testimony comes to us as a gift given of God.”
October 1938 General Conference
- Love of Neighbor
  - “Now the atonement of Christ has done a wonderful thing for us because it has opened the door to salvation. Through that atonement a certain debt and obligation was paid and the door was opened, Christ himself being the first man to go through, and giving us all the privilege of following. Now, the door is not a widely opened door, in a certain sense, and in another sense it is wide open, because every man and woman of us should be able to pass through that door, and then if we do certain things and live in a certain way we shall be able to go on far past that door to an exaltation in the presence of God.”
  - “Then, brethren and sisters, am I not justified in assuming that the atonement of Christ for its efficacy depends somewhat at least upon us here, and that we are able through good deeds to make that full and complete, or through bad deeds to make it fail in its ultimate purpose. I believe it, and that is the testimony that I would like to leave with you this afternoon, that what we realize out of the Gospel of Jesus Christ depends upon us very largely, and that if we insist on saying that we do not gain salvation for ourselves we must grant that our exaltation does depend very largely upon our acts. We cannot expect to attain the highest glory if we go through this life in petty bickerings, in jealousy, and selfish acts. Love is the genius of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and love and jealousy are hardly bedfellows. We must, before we can love our neighbors, take them into our confidence, eradicate from our souls the jealousy that we may feel towards them. If we are jealous of our neighbor and of his success, how can we fully love him, and vice versa? If we love our neighbor as we should how can we be jealous of his success, and if we love him we will not be too jealous of our own prerogatives, and our own relationship with him. We will be willing to grant to that friend and that neighbor a part of the privilege that is ours, if by doing so we can benefit him and bless him and carry him on to a more perfect state of service.”
April 1938 General Conference
- The World Needs the Gospel
  - “This is a troublous time and the world is sick. If we can read the newspapers and rely upon what they tell us, the world is sick and needs a physician. Men are wondering what is wrong, arid how we can correct it. I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has within it the power which, if it were applied to the world at large, would solve all those problems.”
  - “That is the faith that exists in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe verily that when the Prophet Joseph Smith told the world that he had seen God, that God and Jesus Christ were similar beings, and that we are fashioned in their image, he told the truth. Jesus Christ told his followers he would build his church upon the revelation to them of that truth that Jesus was the Son of God. So long as we can keep uppermost in our hearts that testimony, can actually believe in God, our Heavenly Father, and sincerely believe as we do that we have been commissioned to serve his purposes in connection with mankind, we will serve him in righteousness, to the best of our ability.”
October 1937 General Conference
- Being Consistent With the Gospel
  - “I believe that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has in it every element that is essential and necessary for the conduct of all the affairs of human activity. In other words, I believe that there is nothing that men do in honor before God, and essential to their development and well-being, in which that fundamental principle of love should not enter.”
  - “If we will clean house and put our hearts in attune with the Spirit of God, go daily about our business, under the influence of that Spirit, God will bless us with contentment and a peace and a freedom from worry that we can get no other way.”
  - “God stands ready to serve us through the instrumentality of this organization that we have. We stand as your servants, ready to serve you. We love you. If you will serve the Gospel that has been given to us, in that spirit, you will learn to love that Gospel just the same way. If you will give it your time and your talent, you will love it in proportion to the service that you give unto it.”
October 1936 General Conference
- Winter Quarters
  - “It brought into my mind a picture with two sides. I saw on the one side men and women of sterling character, firm in their purpose, true in their faith and courageous in sustaining their officers, willing to do as those people did who lie buried in that cemetery—to lay down their lives at any time should it be required. I am sure that my grandfather and grandmother stood ready to do that, along with yours. A faithful people they were, a struggling people, trying to find the truth, or to live according to the truth they had found, and do their full duty.”
  - “On the other side of that picture, I saw a smaller number perhaps of people who had come into the Church with different motives, whose faith was not of the same high and pure and holy character, who were avaricious, ambitious, and designing men who came in and availed themselves of the counsels of the Prophet and the leaders of the Church only to misapply them and turn against them. I believe that the persecutions that came upon the people were largely due to the activity of such men. So the Evil One came in, as he always does, and opposed the truth. I believe that to be an actual fact.”
  - “I believe also this to be true: that there is a way to bind the Devil—the way of faith. If we want to bind him up and bind him strong, we will unite ourselves together in a solid band, with a single purpose, to sustain our leaders, to live the Gospel, and to honor God. If our people at that time had been a unit in that purpose, had there been no opposition and no treason within the Church, I wonder if the sacrifices of Winter Quarters would have been necessary. I believe they would not.”
  - “That does not mean in any sense that we tolerate the things which we deem sin. which some people indulge in and which we try to eliminate from our midst—not by any means. But it does mean that we can be charitable towards them, that we can lend them the hand of fellowship and assistance where it is possible.”
April 1936 General Conference
- Faith
  - “We have a faith in God our Father and in Jesus Christ his Son. That faith to me is very fundamental. If I could not have it I would feel at a loss as to what to do and how to work. With that faith there is an anchor, a stone firmly set that seems to support and sustain me in all the things I have to encounter. God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son are to me realities. I believe that they are, as we teach them to be, real personages, personages who have interest in us and in our welfare. That faith carries me on through all the trials I have to undergo.”
  - “Whenever I see winter come I am glad because I know there will be a spring. Whenever I lie down at night I am glad of the opportunity because I know there will be sunshine on the morrow. There is a faith and hope in every winter and in every night.”
  - “Intelligence to me is not merely the cramming of my mind full of learning that I get from books. Schools are not the only media of acquiring knowledge, intelligence does not, perhaps, necessarily come from scholastic education. To me intelligence is the power to meet conditions and circumstances and overrule them for our mutual benefit and blessing.”
October 1935 General Conference
- The Resurrection
  - “The resurrection, being an accomplished fact and a possibility with us, opens up to us wonderful opportunities. Perhaps there is no more sublime thought in all our teachings and all our doctrines than the possibility of eternal and perpetual progress that the human soul is capable of. Remove from our philosophy the thought and possibility of a resurrection and we lose that wonderful thought of eternal progression. With it goes the thought of our mutual association in family relationships we so much cherish as a people. They to me are crucial and fundamental beliefs. If we cannot accept them it becomes a sad day for us, but we do accept them wholeheartedly as they are perhaps the most wonderful thoughts in all of our philosophy.”
October 1934 General Conference
- Common Consent
  - “There is a principle existent in the Church that the right to govern is derived from the common consent of those governed. That extends to all the offices of the Church. The bishop is appointed and approved by his ward; the stake president is appointed and approved by his stake; an apostle is appointed and approved by the Church; and the President of the Church is appointed and approved by the Church. And when he is so approved as a prophet, seer and revelator, he has the right to stand at the head of the Church and determine its policies and practices.”
  - “We have before us the scriptures, to which reference has been made this afternoon; I am thinking especially of the Doctrine and Covenants. When the revelations in that wonderful book were given to the Prophet Joseph Smith, they were not all at once compiled and bound into their present form. The time came when that was done, and to make them effective and binding upon the body of the Church they were approved and accepted as the revelations of the Lord to the Church, and from then on we have deemed them as binding upon us.”
April 1934 General Conference
- Gospel Truth
  - “However, we go and we come ; when the President of the Church says go, we go ; when he says come, we come, with equal good will. I trust that in the new labors that I have to undertake I will have the Spirit of the Lord to guide and direct me, that it may be just as pleasant to me as’ the work that I am now leaving behind.”
  - “Now the science that is erected upon an hypothesis is no truer than that hypothesis. If that be true, the science may be true. If that be false, the science is questionable. Before we replace the fundamental truths that we have inherited from our ancestors, religious truths that have been of so much comfort and help to those who have gone before, let us be certain that the things we put in their place are true.”
  - “We maintain that the Gospel embraces all truth. That may not mean that any living man may know all truth. It may not mean that the body of the Church can properly interpret all truth, but it does mean that whenever a truth is established we should accept it as part of the Gospel. But let us scrutinize those things carefully before we turn down the beliefs of the past and accept a new thing which may be founded upon a false hypothesis.”
  - “I welcome criticism if it is made in the proper light and spirit. Unfriendly criticism, inimical criticism perhaps is not to be desired because it is always prejudiced in advance and never sees a question fairly.”
October 1933 General Conference
- Missionary Work
  - “You are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The officers who sit here upon the stand are not the Church. They, of course, are a part of it; they are the guiding element in it, under the direction of the Spirit of God, but they are not the Church. They are only people who have been selected from the great body of the Church, to be your servants, to do the things that God desires done for your benefit and for the benefit of mankind. Perhaps none of them occupies his position through his own solicitations, and certain it is that none of them pretends to any superhuman or unnatural ability in the guidance of these affairs. They rely upon the Spirit of the Lord, just as any member of the great body of the Church would have to do, when called as men are from time to time to these positions ; and it is my testimony that they do enjoy the Spirit of the Lord.”
  - “Every man comes into the world with his free agency, and every man exercises it: sometimes to his advancement, sometimes to his disadvantage.”
  - “If there is anything about our religion that we should appreciate it is its tangibility, it is the fact that it is a philosophy which man has reached, and puerile as he is, can understand. It is that, perhaps, that makes it so popular with the people, that gives them the great and satisfying enthusiasm for it.”
April 1933 General Conference
- Word of Wisdom
  - “I can bear the same testimony that has been borne here already two or three times, that the observance of the Word of Wisdom is no detriment in the world. I have spent ten years of my life laboring with people who are not of our faith, almost all of whom are non-observers of the Word of Wisdom, but I found, without exception, that they expected me to observe the Word of Wisdom. They almost demanded it of me, and I was mighty glad to think that it was a habit with me.”
October 1932 General Conference
- Bearing Testimony
  - “Of course it is our obligation to safeguard their growth and development that they may have this faith that is so necessary, that when they go into the world they may go in faith; that their lives may have been pure, so that they may be exemplary and be a light to the world.”
  - “It matters not so much what their learning may be. God will give them words when the time comes, if they are faithful, so that they may answer questions and preach sermons that will touch the hearts of the people with whom they come in contact. Not all people are touched by the same thing. Not all people can be approached by the same missionary. So that it takes them all to make a world; it takes them all to make successful campaigns in the mission field.”
  - “If we knew God we would serve him, and serving him we would gain eternal life. It is just as sure and certain as that dawn follows darkness.”
  - “That, to me, is the most important testimony that we have to give to the world, that Christ and God are real, actual personalities, who have an interest in us and in our well-being?. If we will adhere to that testimony and preach it boldly to the world—we do not have to do it in a manner that will offend, of course, but we must not fear to give that testimony when we go out—I am sure that in the end our purposes will be accomplished, that this work will prevail, that the great and glorious things that have been predicted of it will come to pass.”
April 1932 General Conference
- The Mexican Mission
  - “We had also the privilege of visiting the ruins of Mexico at San Juan, Teotihuacan, and the pyramid which is called the Snake pyramid. They are full of possibilities, from an archaeological standpoint. However, in using them to substantiate the Book of Mormon we have to be extremely careful, because while they apparently give evidence of certain things, archaeologists are not all agreed as to their value. They are, however, extremely interesting.”
  - “I support and sustain and uphold the President of this Church and those who are in authority under him. It has been my privilege to know him and his first counselor, at least, all my life, and I can bear testimony that I have never received, in all those years, which are past fifty now, a single word of counsel that t could not pass on in public to this congregation.”
October 1931 General Conference
- The Mexican Mission
  - “I pray that with the aid of your faith and prayers, with the power of God to back me up, I may have humility and faith sufficient to carry on the work that he so well and faithfully performed; that the work may not falter, but that it may go forward.”
  - “I pray that the Lord will bless us, that he will give us power to endure, for the power to endure is the genius of this Gospel. If we cannot endure, the Lord pity us. These times are trying, but if we will round up our shoulders I am sure that the Lord will come to our rescue, that we will be able to carry on, and that we will not be the losers because of these trying times. The times of thrift and prosperity are the ones that we should be afraid of, not the times of adversity.”

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Antoine R. Ivins

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