Joseph F. Smith

Patriarch to the Church (September 17, 1942 – October 6, 1946)

General Conference Addresses

• April 1946 General Conference
  • Rely Upon the Lord
    • “That, it seems to me, is the key to true education. No man can receive a fulness of truth unless he keeps the commandments of our Father in heaven. Learning is not wisdom. We have been misled into thinking that learning is the ultimate in education. True education must result in wisdom. The learning in the world is great. We stand breathless before the myriad of marvels of science. The wisdom of the world is puny.”
    • “I pray that certainly the Latter-day Saints at least shall do all in their power to preserve that kind of government, that kind of reliance in government upon providence which to this moment has assured us our blessings and which if we abandon, will bring us into ever increasing slavery.”
• October 1945 General Conference
  • Live by Love
    • “In a world seething with hatred, in a world calling for harsh government of vanquished people, I hope that the Latter-day Saints can remember that we must love our enemies. There are those who say, “But we must be practical. It is no time for sentimentality. We must face facts.” With that I heartily agree. We must face facts. We must be practical, and I bear you my testimony that the only practicality which will bring peace to the world is that we shall love our fellow men.”
• April 1945 General Conference
  • The Lessons from History
    • “I wish to record before this present congregation and before the unseen audience my emphatic witness, without hint of reservation, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, is the anointed One of Israel, the very Redeemer of the world, that he rose from the tomb in a literal resurrection which, by the Christian world, is not believed, in spite of its flaunted celebration of Easter. I wish further to record that because of the wickedness of men the gospel was taken from the earth and that in this dispensation was restored, and that the priesthood of Almighty God was restored with Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery as instruments, that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of the Living God and that every one of his successors is also a prophet.”
• October 1944 General Conference
  • The Significance of Patriarchal Blessings
    • “On the very day that the Prophet explained that evangelical ministers meant patriarchs, he also explained some of the functions of the Comforter. He explained the difference between the two comforters, and he explained that one of the functions of the Holy Ghost is to purge the Gentiles of their Gentile blood. Now we know that today heritages are mixed. Pure racial strains—certainly in the Occident—are almost impossible to discover. Bloods are mixed but a Gentile, born of full Gentile lineage, being converted to the gospel, accepting the gospel, and receiving the Holy Ghost, through his faithfulness, according to the Prophet’s words—and these are not my words—according to according to the Prophet’s words, will have his Gentile blood completely purged, and he will become literally of the blood of Israel.”
    • “Every one of you who has had a patriarchal blessing probably has a testimony about it, and almost daily one of the great joys comes to me—as it does to every patriarch—and also one also one of the terrifying things about the position, is the testimonies of persons who have received patriarchal blessings.”
• April 1944 General Conference
  • An Indissoluble Oneness
    • “Disunity is forever a destructive force whether it be war among nations; whether it be civil strife within the state; whether it be schism within the Church, discord within the family, or even turmoil and conflict within the soul of the individual person; for a man divided against himself can no more stand than a divided house. A society cannot be unified except as its members are one together and except as individually they are one with themselves. The matter of wholeness is essential.”
• October 1943 General Conference
  • On Being a Minority
    • “Until we can be big enough, individually, to love our neighbors, and together love each other, we shall fail. That has some pretty practical and definite applications. It means, for one thing, that men who call themselves employers and men who call themselves laborers must get together and work together and love one another, literally. So long as we have on the one hand employers who are motivated only by profit, and who, for their profit, are willing to exploit labor at any cost, and so long as on the other side of the fence we have men who call themselves laborers, and who band themselves together, and make unjust demands at any cost, so long as we have groups like these fighting each other, we have no hope for establishing the kingdom of God upon the earth.”
• April 1943 General Conference
  • On Taking Ourselves Seriously
    • “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does take itself seriously as an international power. The difficulty is that the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints do not take into sufficient consideration, the international importance of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I submit to you that concentrated under this famous dome there is greater potentiality, were it worthily used, than is to be found in the combined military commands of the warring nations, and, as we have heard time and time again during this conference, that is a great responsibility.”
    • “We do not take the Church seriously enough. Yesterday as Brother Peterson, as I recall, former president of the Norwegian Mission, was speaking—I think it was he who told the tale of finding a Sunday School that had been disbanded because the bishopric had gone pheasant-hunting—this large body of Priesthood was moved to mirth. I personally can find no vestige of humor in the fact that men holding the Priesthood and with responsibility to a congregation should disband it in order to break the Sabbath.”
    • “We do not take the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints seriously enough. Here are gathered men who hold the Priesthood of Almighty God, and we have been told in no uncertain terms that where much is given much is expected and that we shall be held accountable if we fail to magnify the calling which is ours. It is essential that if we are to be intelligently obedient to the gospel, if we are intelligently to keep the covenants which every one of us has made, it is necessary for us to know what the gospel is and what those covenants entail, which means that every one of us should be a student of the scriptures. Not only should he be a student of the scripture as that scripture is found recorded in Holy Writ, but he should be obedient to the scripture as it shall come from the constituted authority of the Church. Somehow it seems so easy to believe that the word of the Lord is printed in a book, but to some people it seems a little difficult when the word of the Lord comes from a living man.”
    • “It has never been the business of a prophet of God to tell people what they wanted to hear; it is the business of a prophet, and I imagine it is a very unpleasant business sometimes, to tell the people what the Lord wants them to know and to do, and we who hold the Priesthood should take the Church seriously enough to be obedient to the scriptures.”
    • “We hear frequently that we must not drive young men out of the Church because they take up smoking, which is quite true. You will remember Bishop Ashton’s remarks yesterday. I think we should go a little further, however, and in being kind to these individuals, make it clear to them that in every case at least fifty percent of the isolation which they feel, and oftener than that a larger percent, is due not to the Church but to the individual who is not conforming.”
• October 1942 General Conference
  • Remarks
    • “I know that my Redeemer lives. Once in January of this year, and again in April, I lay in the valley of the shadow of death. I returned therefrom only by the power of the priesthood and the faith of those who love me. Let sophists scoff—let worldly learned men rationalize: I know—as I know that I stand here—that I am alive this day by the power of the Priesthood and by the faith of my loved ones.”
    • “Obedience to the word of the Lord is the only thing which will fortify us in the days to come.”

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