Henry D. Moyle – Gospel Study

Henry D. Moyle

First Counselor in the First Presidency (October 12, 1961 – September 18, 1963)

Second Counselor in the First Presidency (June 12, 1959 – October 12, 1961)

Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (April 10, 1947 – September 19, 1963)

General Conference Addresses

April 1963 General Conference
- Where Much Is Given
  - “The world is not just a watch that the Lord wound up and left to run down.”
  - “We fulfill our highest potentials when we receive the joy and security and knowledge which come from the witness of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, who teaches us all things essential for this life and ultimately for our eternal exaltation in the kingdom of God.”
  - “The laws and ordinances of the gospel are simple; they are natural. They are appreciated by all who accept and conform their lives thereto. Not all men can acquire the riches of the world, but the blessings of the Lord will overtake all who seek after them.”
  - “Truth is eternal. We must seek truth at its source. Truth emanates from God.”
  - “There is no unrest when you know where you are going spiritually.”
- Phenomenal Growth of LDS Educational Facilities of the Islands
  - “Whatever wealth we have individually, or as a Church, should be fully dedicated to the advancement of the work of the Lord.”
October 1962 General Conference
- Ye Shall Not Fear
  - “I have had the feeling for a long time that we are unduly influenced by fear. I think for the most part the priesthood of the Church believe themselves to be courageous. I am sure that we have not entirely overcome fear.”
- Obey the Gospel of God
  - “The gospel is simple, unambiguous, and understandable by all who desire to know. It is natural, reasonable, and agreeable, and conducive to independence, peace, happiness, and security.”
  - “Whatever we do effectively must be founded on faith and repentance and good works. Our sins need not discourage us if we have the will to overcome them.”
April 1962 General Conference
- Where Your Treasure Is
  - “For fear I didn’t say it as emphatically as I desired to in the beginning, I want to say that every day, every week, every month, every year increase the enthusiasm of these brethren who are charged with the responsibility to pay their own tithing, and constantly to increase their contributions to the Church because of the consciousness they have of the direction which comes from God in performing this most sacred trust.”
- Revelation: Yesterday and Today
  - “The office of a prophet is to prophesy. How can a prophet truly prophesy without revelation? Why should Paul have emphasized the necessity for apostles and prophets in the Church if there were to be no further prophecy? These questions leave the inquirer in a quandary if he at the same time denies the possibility of revelation. When revelation from God ceases, apostasy sets in—man is left to stand alone. The surest of all declarations of apostasy is to declare the heavens are closed and revelation from God to man has ceased. We proclaim to the world this statement is a self-evident truth.”
October 1961 General Conference
- The Spirit of Conversion
  - “Almost every prophecy we have in the Old and the New Testaments concerning the latter days fits into our program and furnishes us the exact, the proper answer to this inquiry as to the marvelous results accompanying the work of our missionaries. They work by and through the Spirit, and let me say this to you mothers and fathers, we love you, and we appreciate your loyalty, and we appreciate your sons’ and your daughters’ service. Have no concern about your sons and daughters in the mission field. It makes no difference who their mission president is. As long as they are in the line of their duty, encouraged by their parents so to be, they are in the hands of the Lord, and he has promised to take care of them and is bound by those promises.”
- Correlation
  - “I am sure that one of the purposes for which this great correlation program is organized and one of the great results which will be accomplishes by it, will be the elimination, so far as that is possible, of sin and transgression within the Church.”
April 1961 General Conference
- Pres. McKay, Missionary
  - “My, what we could produce in this Church today if we would follow the admonitions of President McKay, the great missionary that he is.”
- The Testimony We Give of Him
  - “When we come to fulfill all righteousness by delivering the message of the gospel as it has been revealed to us, to our fellow men, we must teach by the Spirit.”
  - “Some may ask the question as to how we convert others to the truth. The answer is, we do not. Conversion comes from above. Our part in this work is to plant the seeds of truth.”
April 1958 General Conference
- Church Education
  - “The cause of God is one common cause, in which the Saints are alike all interested; we are all members of the one common body, and all partake of the same spirit, and are baptized into one baptism and possess alike the same glorious hope. The advancement of the cause of God and the building up of Zion is as much one man’s business as another’s.”
April 1957 General Conference
- The Greatest Gift
  - “As surely as God sent his Son to redeem the sins of the world, so he sends the Holy Ghost to those who seek divine guidance in understanding the gospel.”
  - “It is our purpose as members of the Church to consider constantly the place of testimony in our lives. We dare not become complacent or unaware of this priceless gift which is ours.”
October 1956 General Conference
- Report on South American Missions
  - “I plead with you, my brethren and sisters, to anticipate; and while we are anticipating a mission for our sons and our daughters, we ought to anticipate for them also a marriage, a military career for our sons so long as we have compulsory military training, and then a life’s work. We cannot begin too young. We certainly will increase the percentage of temple marriages if we take it upon ourselves to instruct our young people in these important affairs of life in their early ages; we will make better missionaries of them, make better citizens and better soldiers.”
April 1956 General Conference
- Anniversary of Church Welfare
  - “Our presence here today indicates how happy and how grateful we are to live in a day and age when a prophet of God is in our midst. We know that we are not left alone to our own judgment or the devices of men.”
April 1955 General Conference
- Our Twofold Mission
  - “We must call all people to repentance, and to those who hearken unto our words teach the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
  - “Nothing is so much calculated to lead people to forsake sin as to take them by the hand and watch over them with tenderness.”
  - “Do not procrastinate repentance. Deathbed repentance does not fulfil the law—man should repent and serve the Lord in health and in strength, in vigor of body and mind, and give of his life, such as may remain, when that faith in God, which creates the spirit of repentance within us, is received by him.”
  - “The Church accepts the sinners into its society, not to foster them in their wickedness, but if they repent, to sanctify and cleanse them, by our kindness, from all unrighteousness.”
  - “We are charged with the responsibility of doing as we have heretofore agreed. Repentance becomes our second chance to accomplish the purpose of our creation. As we repent, we are forgiven.”
October 1954 General Conference
- The Restoration
  - “How can we study the restoration as I have tried to emphasize, without some study of what we are restoring? Answering the question, if the world once had it, what has it done with it?”
April 1954 General Conference
- Visit with the European Saints
  - “I had the privilege of shaking hands with some four hundred people who live behind the Iron Curtain. I heard their leaders say that they knew that they had a mission there to perform that was far greater than any mission that they could perform elsewhere in the world. They did not seek by migration to relieve themselves of the burdens, of the oppression, or of the persecution under which they live. All they prayed for was strength that they might withstand the same, and in overcoming their obstacles grow strong.”
October 1953 General Conference
- Who Shall Deny or Question the Justice of God?
  - “Down through the ages, from Father Adam on, came to man the same knowledge and understanding of God received from God by those who sought wisdom, in keeping with the admonition of James.”
  - “Today God has not left us alone, dependent upon the testimonies of ancient prophets.”
April 1953 General Conference
- Friendship
  - “I want to bear witness to you today, my brethren, that none of us can magnify our callings in the priesthood, none of us can exercise the power of the priesthood efficaciously, and none of us can have that witness come into our hearts that gives us that knowledge supreme of the existence of God and his Son Jesus Christ, unless we are true brothers, unless we belong to a society of men who love one another, and who are devoted to one another, who have confidence in one another, and who are much more apt to forgive the mistakes of one another than to criticize that which we may see amiss in our neighbor.”
  - “I hate when I looked for a manly furtherance or at least a manly resistance to find a mush of concession.”
  - “I love the Lord with all my heart, and with all my soul, and I have no other desire in life than to serve him. I hope that I may go on in life to the end of my journey, retaining that love which I have in my heart for him. I have no greater desire than to have that same love for all my fellow men. I hope I may be bound closely to my brothers and my sisters in the kingdom of God and that that relationship may be eternal and be righteous.”
October 1952 General Conference
- Be Yourself
  - “Once again, that allotment which has come to us from God is a sacred allotment. It is something of which we should be proud, each one of us in our own right, and not wish that we had somebody else’s allotment. Our greatest success comes from being ourselves.”
  - “We need not fear the philosophies of the world. We will not need any enlightenment or any instruction or any assistance from anyone but the Comforter. For I bear witness to you today that if we accept of the Lord the allotment which he has given to us as our birthright, as our inheritance, and we build upon it as we should, that we will enjoy all through our lives that Comforter which the Savior promised his disciples.”
April 1952 General Conference
- Political Responsibilities of Latter-day Saints
  - “We must have leadership in this nation whose voice will be clear; whose virtue, clarity, and certainty will give us the assurance that the course the government pursued under their leadership is right. Then we can put our whole heart and soul back of our government and sustain those who preside in government and feel toward them even as we do toward those who have been divinely chosen to guide and direct the affairs of the Church.”
  - “I hope and pray, my brethren and sisters, that we will not feel that politics has become so degraded that we are too good to participate. If any of us believe politics to be in that kind of state, we need only to enter into politics, go into it with our honesty and our integrity and our devotion to truth and to righteousness, and the standards will be raised. We cannot expect in this country a better government than the leaders are good, and so if we want a good government we must have good leaders.”
October 1951 General Conference
- Special Privileges
  - “The commandment is to pay every man his dues, and no man can get to heaven who justly owes his brother or his neighbor, who has or can get the means and will not pay it.”
  - “It is impossible for us to take advantage of one another in any way, shape, or form and still have that brotherly love which should characterize the membership of the Church of Jesus Christ.”
April 1951 General Conference
- Tribute to George Albert Smith
  - “Love begets love, and as we love one another, our ability to love increases.”
  - “President Smith was a great missionary. As we were going over to Hawaii on the boat, on the night of the captain’s dinner President Smith felt that he should do something for the captain and not merely be the recipient of some favor from him. And so, as we went to the dining room that evening. President Smith had in his hand one of his favorite copies of The Improvement Era. It was, of course, a formal affair at the captain’s table; the ladies and the men were dressed in formal attire. It took a man of the courage of President Smith to do what he did, because before that dinner was over he had gone to the captain of that ship and given to him The Improvement Era and paid his respects to him and his guests.”
October 1950 General Conference
- If Any Man Love the World, the Love of the Father Is Not in Him
  - “Some people today, and today is a day of prosperity, become so attached to their wealth that they become sufficient to themselves. They cease to be dependent upon God. They sense no necessity for any direction from him, and they go their own way. Just as certainly as they do, they gradually lead themselves on toward destruction.”
  - “It seems that when men gain power on this earth, whether it be political or otherwise, they build up within themselves an egotism which destroys that simple faith in God which is so essential for men who are charged with important responsibilities in public life and elsewhere to possess.”
  - “One who disregards the Constitution is not worthy of our patronage, politically or otherwise.”
April 1950 General Conference
- In the Morning of the Resurrection
  - “We shall be judged according to that which we do in the flesh. We shall not be saved by grace alone.”
  - “Without that gift and without that power of the Holy Ghost you and I would not be able to become submissive to the will of our Heavenly Father. We would not know what his will is, except by the gift and power of the Holy Ghost.”
  - “The power and gift of the Holy Ghost can draw us close together, can make us united, can make us discern the word of the Lord when we hear it from his servants, that we will be immediately obedient and susceptible to his will thus expressed.”
October 1949 General Conference
- Blessings of Welfare Work
  - “I wonder if there is any tangible way that we can show our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his work better than we can when we are engaged in this welfare work, contributing of our time and of our means and of our talents to further the interests of those who may not be so fortunate or so young as we are at the moment.”
April 1949 General Conference
- We Should Improve Our Communities
  - “I feel to commend all of the Latter-day Saints today for the efforts that they have extended to make of their communities, in a civic sense, a proper place to live. But I am certain that you will all agree with me that we still have a great work to perform in this connection, and we cannot delay nor overlook the slightest opportunity.”
  - “I tell you, my brethren and sisters, that when we exercise this kind of faith and courage in behalf of our neighbors as well as our own members we will accomplish a great missionary work in this world. There will be men and women brought to investigate the principles of the gospel because they will see the kind of fruits in us which this gospel has borne. Their doors will be opened to us through our civic activities to preach the gospel of the restored kingdom and to bring the same joy and happiness into the hearts of our neighbors with which the Lord has blessed us all our lives.”
  - “Are we to open our stores, are we to carry on our commercial transactions on the Sabbath day the same as we do on a weekday, or are we to close our establishments? Well, the answer is obvious. Now, why isn’t any law which has for its purpose the maintaining of the Sabbath day sacred, a law which we should uphold and sustain and support and vote for on every occasion that we have a legal right so to do? To hold otherwise would be to tell us that we have not the right to use our own free agency so far as the affairs of government are concerned.”
  - “Let us start fighting for prohibition, for after all, that is what we ought to have to maintain the kind of communities our Heavenly Father would have us maintain in this world, and on this continent, and in this land of his. We cannot hope to receive the blessings of our Heavenly Father here, in as rich abundance as he is willing to give them to us if we do not exercise every power that we have to make this a land choice above all others.”
  - “There is no more insidious vice on earth than gambling. It is destructive of the morals.”
  - “The man does not live who is strong enough in the faith, I do not care what his past record has been, to start in gambling and continue therein and keep the faith.”
October 1948 General Conference
- Responsibilities of Parents
  - “Certainly natural affection is something that was bestowed upon us at birth. We had an abundance of love at that time for our parents. The child loves its mother. We are brought to a time in our lives, in the history of this world, today, when we should begin to inquire as to whether there is any less degree of affection existing between us, as we grow to maturity, for our parents, than that which existed in the days of our childhood and our youth. If we find the slightest difference, if we find that there has been any loss of affection, then we should examine our lives carefully to ascertain what we can do to bring about its restoration. Of all the people upon this earth we should be the last people to consider accepting any of the philosophies of the world, no matter what the prize attached thereto might be, if so to do would be to withdraw from that close affinity and affection which must exist between father and son and mother and daughter if we are to realize here in our mortal existence the full purpose of our creation.”
  - “It would seem that all of the philosophies of the world today are set upon destroying the home. As we travel through the world, the people of the world seem to have lost in their lives the significance of home. We as Latter-day Saints cannot do this. We must still maintain the home as a place where we can kneel down daily with our children and teach them to pray. Our home is the place where we can teach them the gospel. We cannot be saved in ignorance and neither can our children.”
  - “We have a responsibility to make of our homes a sacred place where our children will want to come and bring their children and kneel with us in prayer and read the scriptures with us and discuss with us the problems of life.”
  - “It is not enough in this day and age to make money, to be able to bestow the riches of the world upon our children to let them live in luxury, give them all of the things of life that they might want. Better than all that is to give a little of ourselves to our children, that they might know us for what we are and feel of the spirit which we have and which we receive through keeping the commandments of our Heavenly Father.”
April 1948 General Conference
- “Feed My Sheep”
  - “It is generally understood that the Lord here enjoined those engaged in his work to teach the gospel, to impart spiritual strength to those who may be spiritually weak. As those who profess to follow the Savior, none of us can escape that serious responsibility.”
  - “Can our prayers ascend to the throne of mercy and be heard and answered, as we humbly desire, unless we practice charity in our lives? Must we not give of ourselves and of our means in helping others? Good intentions alone are not enough. Charity is not a virtue to expect in others only. It is the all-important Christian attribute to be found in ourselves.”
  - “This great principle does not deny to the needy nor to the poor the assistance they should have. The wholly incapacitated, the aged, the sickly are cared for with all tenderness, but every able-bodied person is enjoined to do his utmost for himself to avoid dependence, if his own efforts can make such a course possible; to look upon adversity as temporary; to combine his faith in his own ability with honest toil; to rehabilitate himself and his family to a position of independence; in every case to minimize the need for help and to supplement any help given with his own best efforts.”
  - “We believe it is seldom when men of rigorous faith, genuine courage, and unfaltering determination, with the love of independence burning in their hearts, and pride in their own accomplishments, cannot surmount the obstacles that lie in their paths.”
  - “We know that through humble, prayerful, industrious, God-fearing lives, a faith can be developed within us by the strength of which we can call down the blessings of a kind and merciful Heavenly Father and literally see our handicaps vanish and our independence and freedom established and maintained.”
  - “There is an infinity of difference between the sack of flour that comes over the back fence from your next door neighbor and a sack that is sent to you from Washington.”
  - “It can be truthfully said of both men and women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that they do not do their full duty, so long as all means are not shared with mother or father, brother or sister, son or daughter in need.”
  - “Can we hope to be charitable to the stranger if love does not abound in the family?”
October 1947 General Conference
- Necessity and Value of the Welfare Plan
  - “There is another thing that is close to my heart today, and I seem impelled to speak upon it, and that is that the bounties of this earth have been promised to the Latter-day Saints and to all the children of our Heavenly Father if we keep the Sabbath day holy. We certainly have plenty of reason to give this matter consideration in connection with our welfare work. One of the earliest commandments that were given to man was that we should remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”
  - “This great welfare program of ours is calculated to bring father and son, and son and father into that close relationship and communion that Paul would have had exist in the Church his day. And it is just as essential to us today that we should do it. I want to say that tied in with that great principle is the great eternal principle of free agency that all of us prize so highly. We had to have our free agency in the councils in heaven, and through the use of that free agency we chose to come here to work out our temporal salvation and through our obedience to the laws and commandments of God to become literally his sons and his daughters.”
April 1947 General Conference
- Strength of the Gospel
  - “It goes without saying that we do in this Church what we are told. I have never understood that it was my privilege as a member of this Church, holding the priesthood, to say no. I have never had a desire in my heart to do anything other than that which the brethren direct. While I may feel as if some of the things that they have most recently asked me to do are beyond my power, nevertheless so far as my Heavenly Father will give me the power to act I shall do so, and all that I have and am belongs to my Heavenly Father.”
  - “Brethren and sisters, my faith in this gospel is such that I do not confine my obedience alone to that which I find in the scriptures, but I believe that our obedience should be pledged, that of every one of us, to every word that comes from the mouths of the prophets and the representatives of our Heavenly Father here upon this earth. To me that which the Presidency of this Church have said and say now, is as much the law and the gospel as anything that has ever been said or written before for our guidance.”
  - “I hope and pray that I may be blessed in my ministry with the wisdom that comes from above, and never be tempted to rely upon that which comes from the world.”

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