Melvin J. Ballard – Gospel Study

Melvin J. Ballard

Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (January 7, 1919 – July 30, 1939)

General Conference Addresses

April 1939 General Conference
- The Straight and Narrow
  - “Our declaration to all men is that we know the strait gate and the narrow way, not from our knowledge, but from the revelations of God, from those who knew it, who have visited the earth and have revealed to man again in this age the way through that strait gate and narrow road, and the divine authority is restored to administer the sacred ordinances of the Gospel, to put men’s feet in that path that shall lead to exaltation in the celestial kingdom.”
October 1938 General Conference
- War and Peace
  - “When that day comes—for only through him can peace come—then will swords be beaten into plowshares, and spears into pruninghooks. God help us to realize our tremendous responsibility, not only for ourselves and the Church, but for the whole world, and for the kingdom of the Redeemer that shall be triumphant in the earth. God speed that glorious day.”
April 1938 General Conference
- A Promised Land
  - “We also have a mission to prepare ourselves, through subscribing to the principles of this Gospel, to become the light of the world, the very salt of the earth, in a day when men will lose faith in God, and even the mission of Jesus Christ will be questioned. Your mission is, therefore, to indeed arise and shine. We plead with you to subscribe to these Gospel standards, because they are the rules we must subscribe to, if we shall be worthy to come to live in the presence of God.”
October 1937 General Conference
- Problems Solved in the Lord’s Way
  - “We have received instructions from our youth, that the boy shall be as clean and as chaste as the girl; that there is no double standard, and that each one of us regards preservation of chastity as more precious than life itself.”
  - “Young men and young women, God never expected you to be like the world ; not to be imitators. Your mission is to be pattern makers, to hold up an ensign, to create hope in the world and faith in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, having power to mold men’s hearts to conquer their weaknesses and make them susceptible to live up to the high standards of this restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
April 1937 General Conference
- The Rich and the Poor
  - “I am also anxious that we shall distinguish ourselves in a time when the whole world seems to be running wild with a spirit of change. When the war had ended, many of us rejoiced to see nation after nation abandon monarchial forms of government and establish democracies, and, we thought, this is truly the beginning of the golden age for the world. Then we discovered with sorrow that there was much lacking to prepare the nations, that had been for ages under kings and monarchies, to be ready for a democracy. They could not stand the trial of poverty and distress, and capitalizing upon the people’s distresses there arose leaders that overthrew these democracies and they established dictatorships that will not bring this world to its peace, nor will they liberate these people but will enslave them, and they will never go forward under the plan of either communism or fascism that robs men of their liberties, of their property and political rights.”
  - “God help us to prove to a world that is doubtful and skeptical about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that in the real Gospel, restored with its power and its authority, there is a virility and strength sufficient to meet and to solve human problems, and let us go gloriously toward our destiny, as the Lord hath pointed it out.”
October 1936 General Conference
- Struggle for Victory and Truth
  - “The conflict between good and evil will be fierce but out of every struggle will come the victory of the right and of the truth. Every man-made institution that stands in the way of God’s purposes will be shaken and fall to the earth, and his kingdom shall come and his will be done upon earth as it is in heaven.”
April 1936 General Conference
- Guided by Testimony and Revelation
  - “There is a time in the life of every man, and nation, when we stand at the crossroads. We are today, many of us, uncertain where to go and what to do. My plea to every Latter-day Saint is : If you do not know it, get a knowledge and testimony in your heart that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ, and that Joseph Smith is a prophet of the true and the living God. There is ample evidence to satisfy any honest investigator; no one needs to say it cannot be demonstrated nor discovered. And then I plead with you to have patience with your problems whatever they are, economic or otherwise; be patient and be faithful, don’t be swept off your feet by every wind of doctrine that would lead you hither and thither. Don’t imagine that the schemes of men that hope and seek to solve the economic problems of the world are a substitute for that which God has given, for that which he has given this Church will stand when all the theories and schemes of men will fail.”
October 1935 General Conference
- Keep the Commandments
  - “War comes out of the spirit of men, the spirit of greed, the spirit of selfishness and of hatred, all of which the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ could eliminate from the hearts of men.”
  - “If you want to distinguish yourselves keep the commandments of God and you will find blessings personally and we will be teaching a lesson, holding aloft the standards that will attract good men and good women elsewhere and they will come to learn of our ways and to walk in our paths.”
April 1935 General Conference
- Priesthood Authority
  - “The Lord himself did not recognize these Bishops of Rome as Peter’s successors, but he did recognize his surviving apostle John who, as one of the Presidency, held the keys of the kingdom with his associates Peter and James ; for upon the Isle of Patmos the revelations of the Lord were given to this apostle setting forth the will of God to the churches of Asia, and showing what should come to pass in the last days.”
October 1934 General Conference
- Following in His Footsteps
  - “Eleven years as a bishop’s counselor and high councilor; fourteen years as a missionary of the Church; fifteen years as a member of the Council of the Twelve—forty years of glorious living! The joy that had come out of it, the honors and the favors of the Almighty, I would not change for all the titles and degrees that Harvard offers, much as I admire them, if I had to sacrifice for them the joys and the happiness that came to me through yielding obedience.”
  - “If I do what the Lord wants me to do I shall live to fulfil my life in the fullest and the most glorious way. I cannot always see what he wants me to do, but he often inspires those whom he has called and appointed to direct the labors of my life, so that if I am obedient to them and listen I shall come to find myself prepared.”
  - “The foundation of all the sorrows and distresses that have ever come to men, from the very beginning until this day, have come through disobedience. No man commits sin but that he is disobedient to the law of God and man.”
  - “What is the method in this Church? It is obedience through love, not obedience through force.”
April 1934 General Conference
- We Must Not Follow the World
  - “In the desire for change many thoughtless ones will want to change stable, eternal practices and principles. I see the spirit of the enemy at work in seeking to destroy the standards of morality among men.”
  - “Will the world come to learn of this people if we live like the world? Suppose they abandon their standards, shall we do so too? No no, we will carry on, loyal and true to our standards.”
  - “It is true that Satan will give revelations to lead the people away from the truth—pretended revelations to lead them into open violation of the commandments of the Lord—but I have confidence in the outcome.”
October 1933 General Conference
- Being True
  - “We are to be a light unto the world and solve the problems of men, and as I listened to the appeal of our President I felt that we were making history today. We have been making history during these years, and we are going to make some more history in the next month or so, that we are either going to be proud or ashamed of, when we come to express ourselves on the Eighteenth Amendment.”
April 1933 General Conference
- Support of the Nation
  - “We are more interested in the quality of men and women this Church has produced than in the numbers. Numbers have never meant very much in the past, and they may not mean much in the future, but quality is everything.”
April 1932 General Conference
- Hold to Truth
  - “There are those who lose their faith, some allow their spirit to be broken, and some even commit suicide. It should not be so with the Latter-day Saints. Our position should be to study our problem and discover what led us into our present difficulties. Then go to work, and see to it that we solve our problem and let not this lesson be repeated unto us.”
  - “The greatest losses are not financial. They are spiritual. Our financial losses will all be recovered if we will only be patient and see the hand of God working for the furtherance of his holy purposes. We have reached the day, thank the Lord, when his truth is triumphant, when it is going to succeed, the greatest day truth has ever known.”
October 1931 General Conference
- Economic Hardships
  - “Their attitude is equally as objectionable in the sight of the Lord as that of the stingy rich. Let the poor, therefore, not be possessed of the spirit of Bolshevism that would unlawfully take possession of that which does not belong to them.”
April 1931 General Conference
- The Gift of the Holy Ghost
  - “The Lord promised long ago that the majority of the leadership of this Church never would lead this people astray, and they never will, and they are not leading this people astray today. Every faction that rises will come to naught, just as sure as you and I live.”
  - “How my soul rejoices to see this work progressing, developing, going forward, although there are these deceptions. Yes, the elect would be deceived, if it were possible, by the miraculous things that sometimes appear among others. There were those, in the days of Christ, who healed the sick and followed not after him, and some of the disciples wanted to know if they should not rebuke and restrain these who were thus manifesting certain power. Christ told them to leave them alone; they were not competitors of his.”
  - “It does not disturb me to see evidences of this character today elsewhere, because here is the light, here is the truth, here is the power of God, and here is the authority of the holy priesthood. I am sure that every Latter-day Saint who is observing the commandments of the Lord, not seeking for these things, to consume them upon his own lusts, will have witnesses and testimonies of the Holy Spirit that will guide him to detect the falsehoods, to detect the deceptions that are at work.”
October 1930 General Conference
- Helping the Poor
  - “Fasting is a blessing in itself to the physical being, and a blessing to the spiritual being, because it tends, in its very nature, to give spiritual control over the physical being. Gratitude for the goodness of the Lord in providing food and life comes from that fast, also sympathy for the poor who are without food, and then too we are giving that which has been saved.”
  - “The deliverance of the poor shall not be through any legislation. It will come through the Lord’s plan, for they shall see the power of God coming in glory unto their deliverance, for the fatness of the earth shall be theirs.”
  - “I recognize that you cannot legislate men into righteous living. That must come from the heart. Our plan contemplates the conversion of the hearts of men to an obedience to the Lord’s plan.”
April 1930 General Conference
- Keep the Fires Lit
  - “Our sacred duty is to stand by the fires that have been kindled, keep them ablaze that they shall never die, that they shall never perish. This is the glorious age of truth.”
  - “I bear witness to you Latter-day Saints that all we need to do is to keep the commandments of God. His promise was that if we would listen to his counsels we would never cease to prevail until the kingdoms of the world were subjugated under the Lord Jesus Christ; and the earth will be given to the saints and those who are worthy of it, to possess it forever and forever.”
October 1929 General Conference
- Honesty and Integrity
  - “I am not so much concerned with the material growth of the Church or its increase in membership as I am with its growth in good works, in righteousness.”
  - “I believe that the first step that men take toward disregarding the laws of man is to disregard the laws of God.”
  - “I care not how many privileges and blessings, come to men, what their ordinations and baptisms may have been, there is no possibility of their entering into the presence of God by dishonest means.”
  - “When my father died he was a poor man with a large family, but he left us a credit that I have counted as worth more than millions. I never knew him to do a dishonest thing in all his life, nor would I be ashamed for the whole world to see his acts revealed. I confess to you that has been a greater joy and strength to me than money would have been.”
April 1929 General Conference
- Be Clean
  - “The easiest way to destroy a man’s faith is to destroy his morality; that when his morals are corrupted his faith totters; he cannot stand, except he repent, of course.”
  - “I have discovered in my own experience with hundreds of missionaries that when the devil lays a snare for the feet of a missionary, he generally baits the hook with a woman.”
  - “It was not the design and the intention of the Lord to have this people always in suffering in bondage and distress. They shall come to peace and prosperity, but it is the sorest trial that will come to them.”
  - “The sacredness of the kiss and affectionate relationships belong only to the engaged and married state, and ought not to be indulged in by those who are only seeking the thrill of the moment. There will come danger if we do not guard and keep, by all the strength and power we have, these splendid young people in the path of rectitude and safety.”
  - “The boy who would deliberately look upon a clean, chaste, and pure girl to rob her of her virtue is almost as guilty as though he contemplated sending a knife into her heart to destroy her.”
October 1928 General Conference
- A Time of Testing
  - “I could go through each principle of the gospel that has been revealed to us and show, I am sure, my brethren and sisters, that the attitude of the leaders of this Church affecting the lives of the people as to the solution of the great problems of this age is right, and that each principle is right.”
April 1928 General Conference
- The Work Will Progress
  - “He has sought by every power and means at his command to destroy it, and he has failed. And he will fail in the future. He is gathering his forces for the great conflict and struggle, even Armageddon, when the living righteous and righteous dead shall be arrayed on one side against the living wicked and the wicked dead, in a mighty conflict, to settle the question as to who has the right to rule and reign; and he shall be defeated, no matter how great his forces.”
October 1927 General Conference
- Following the Word of God
  - “There will not be a man or woman in this Church, a boy or a girl, who shall not be tempted or tried. The adversary will lay individual siege against every man’s faith and against every woman’s faith, to seek to darken their spirits, and have them believe that they have perhaps been deluded in some of these great and wonderful things; that the Lord is not sustaining the establishment of this work, or that the Lord delayeth his coming, or, that after all it is only a matter of opinion.”
  - “Civilization cannot be maintained by the wisdom of man. God alone can do it, and the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ alone is the path and the way and the means by which that civilization may be preserved.”
April 1927 General Conference
- Resisting Satan
  - “We came out of the world to escape the evils of the world, but, as has just been observed, these world conditions have come to us. We are part of the world and the influences of the world and the practices of the world will naturally have their effect upon the lives of the Latter-day Saints.”
  - “We are tolerant of the sinner, but we cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance; and woe be to the man or woman, the leader in the wards or stakes or elsewhere, among the young people, who can wink at sin and compromise with it!”
  - “There is no cessation on the part of the enemy against this work. Though he may not be conspiring to move mobs against us, nor to induce men to annihilate us, he is among the people with new means and ways, lulling them off to sin a little, to lie a little and to steal a little, and do other things with the promise: You will be beaten with a few stripes, but you will be all right. It is the doctrine of the devil which is intended to lead men gently down to hell, and we cannot be ignorant of it nor indifferent toward it.”
  - “What can an earthly father do to his grown sons and daughters more than to teach them of the danger. He cannot rescue them against their will, if they are determined to sin and transgress the law of God and man.”
  - “We speak of binding the devil, and the devil will be bound and have no power over us when we resist him, but we may resist the Lord in the same manner and thus bind his hands so that he can do nothing for us, for he himself is ruled by law, he cannot set aside the majesty of eternal law, nor save men in their sins.”
  - “God is rendered helpless in the case of a man or woman in this Church or out of this Church who resists him and who will not abide the law.”
October 1926 General Conference
- Mission to Argentina
  - “God gave us the Book of Mormon and the chief reason, as set forth in one of the revelations, is that it shall be the means of bringing to the descendants of Father Lehi the knowledge of the Redeemer of the world, and to establish them in the faith of their fathers.”
October 1925 General Conference
- Go on a Mission
  - “There is nothing so invigorating to the health, so uplifting to the spirits of men, as to preach the gospel.”
  - “The spirit of the age is the spirit of self-indulgence, and it finds its final expression in self-degredation, in the violation of the law of God, in the committing of sexual sins that are destroying the life of men and women.”
  - “There is no investment which you men can put your money or your time into that will pay you so well in time or in eternity as to invest in a human soul, whether that shall be in the missionary field or at home, in the care of those precious ones who have come under our supervision.”
April 1925 General Conference
- Missionary Obligations
  - “I know the Lord does not wish to send judgments upon an unwarned and unprepared people. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of man. This is a day of warning.”
October 1924 General Conference
- Stand Against Sin
  - “We need to adhere to our standards as never before in the history of this Church, because sin is rampant. Self-indulgence is the key word of the hour in the world, and I confess that I tremble and fear when I see the things that men boast of as the evidence of our high civilization, being really the very things that brought the ruin and the destruction of empires that have long since perished.”
April 1924 General Conference
- Missions of the Church
  - “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. That is the message the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is under obligation to carry to all the world.”
  - “I recognize that there is no salvation for this generation except through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I recognize that tbe Lord has required it at our hands, and that it has to be done and done speedily.”
  - “God cannot save them, because he is limited. He must himself obey law. He cannot save his sons and his daughters, only inasmuch as they repent.”
  - “Do you know that we can bind the Lord also by our wickedness? By our own rebellion, we tie his hands, we make him helpless to save us, and he cannot do it except men will repent.”
  - “God’s love for them cannot save them except they repent. Jesus himself, with all the love he had for the children of men, upon the Mount of Olives, wept over Jerusalem and said: “Oh, that thou wouldst have received the message. How I would have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens.” But they would not.”
October 1923 General Conference
- The Book of Mormon
  - “All that earthly father can do is to warn his son of the danger, point out the difficulties that are before the boy, plead with him to change his course, and afier he has made his appeal he can point out the way of safety, and then the father’s powers to save are ended. All his overweaning love for that boy cannot go further. Our heavenly bather is very much in the same condition.”
  - “The law must take its course, and when men refuse the offer and tender the Lord has given by which thev may be saved, they cannot blame the Lord if calamities, judgments and destructions come upon them.”
  - “I rejoice not in the prospects of the chastisement that awaits the nations of the earth, I desire that they would save themselves. The means is yet at hand. By repentance and by turning to the Lord Jesus Christ they may find that salvation, but without it there is no salvation for this world.”
April 1923 General Conference
- Keep the Commandments
  - “This is the hour, this is the time when the whole world is giving evidence of their weakness and inability to sacrifice and to make the flesh amenable to their own good common sense, or whether or not they want license and liberty to destroy the flesh through yielding to its lusts, to its appetites and to its desires.”
October 1922 General Conference
- Success in Relying on the Lord
  - “If it is freakish to serve God and keep his commandments, if it is freakish for us to observe the Word of Wisdom and abstain from the use of tobacco and tea and coffee, then let us be a freakish people. I would like to be that kind.”
  - “There are blessings for which we depend upon the Lord. While we are anxious that we shall employ all the skill and the wisdom of man, and physical power and ability, in the accomplishment of these things, all the wisdom of man, all his physical power, all his genius, cannot succeed except God shall bless his labors; and if he shall bless them, and if we shall be diligent, if we shall be anxious to do our part, I am sure the result will be all that is desired.”
  - “Success does not come from mind power; the brain does not bring success. It is helpful, undoubtedly, but some of the wisest and some of the brainiest men in the world have been altogether wrong in the last few years.”
  - “Neither is it hard work, alone by itself, that brings success. That is necessary; brains are necessary; physical strength is essential, and so is hard work; but all these combined may make a total failure. What is it that really brings success? It is doing the right thing at the right time.”
  - “I know that it will require the steadfast faithfulness of every man and woman to escape the perils of this generation.”
April 1922 General Conference
- The Destiny of the Latter-day Saints
  - “I tell you when God laid the foundation of this Church, He gave us the principles and rule of conduct for the membership of this Church, so broad, so complete and comprehensive, that upon that foundation we can build to attain heights that men never have attained in the history of this world. We are here for that purpose; we are here to produce the highest civilization that has ever graced the foot-stool of God.”
  - “Every organization and institution that promotes the welfare of one particular class against the welfare and interest of others, is dangerous.”
  - “I said that we are men and women who have learned self-control. We have learned it in the payment of tithing; we have learned it in obeying the laws of the land. One of the things that men are now deploring is the tendency upon the part of the people, even of our own country, to disregard and disobey the laws of the land. I hold up to the Latter-day Saints and to the world the example of this Church, in obeying the law as an evidence of our superior ability in self-control.”
  - “The secret of our attaining the goal is to pay the price of moral integrity.”
  - “There never was an immoral people who did not entertain immoral thoughts.”
October 1921 General Conference
- Preaching Repentance
  - “Since they do not see it, we who see and know it, with all the earnestness of our souls, we must proclaim repentance unto this generation. Some have repented, but the majority have not.”
  - “I know that there are brethren who think that they know more than the bishop of the ward, and they would not go to him to counsel with him concerning their material things ; nor would they go to the president of the stake or even to the president of the Church. But I want to tell you there is a wisdom and an inspiration resting with these men, who have been called to be leaders of the people, that is greater than the wisdom of men who may think they know very much more, but who, nevertheless, will discover that these are the days when the wisdom of the wise shall perish and the understanding of the prudent be hid.”
  - “I call you, my brethren, to watch, to work, to pray, and to guard the flocks over whom God hath made you overseers, that the insidious influence of evil, if it comes in to seek to corrupt the morals of this people, shall not have power to succeed, but that we shall live up to the standards under which I was raised, and you were raised, that we shall teach our sons and daughters that next to murder itself, is the. crime of sexual impurity. We have that standard. We expect the boy to be just as clean and as pure as the girl whom he marries, to be his wife and the mother of his children.”
April 1921 General Conference
- God Has Preserved the Saints
  - “Where nature does much for man, man is inclined to do little, or less; but where man has to struggle for his existence, there is the place where his physical powers are developed and his faith increased.”
  - “In our history, in these trials and difficulties, we have gone to the Lord, or at least the Lord has provided the opportunity whereby we had to come to him, we had to depend upon him; and he has never deserted us nor left us alone in any of these times of trial and difficulty.”
  - “When we have light and knowledge, there comes responsibility. Let us each assume it, do our part, get our homes, and with all our hearts serve him, as we never have done before, and set our houses in order and prepare ourselves that we may be worthy his favor to escape the judgments that are yet to come.”
- The Gathering
  - “But do not suppose, my brethren and sisters, that the enemy is satisfied or that he is content to leave us alone, for he still is opposed to the gathering of this people, and if he cannot break them up, root and branch, and drive them forth, he will lay siege against us in devious ways, with cunning craftiness. He will seek by all of his power to nullify, as far as possible, the great blessings the Lord had in view in the gathering of the Latter-day Saints, and to wean away Our sons and daughters, to make paths here and there that shall divert them: away from the gathering place and away from the purpose of the Lord in bringing this people together.”
  - “My brethren, and sisters, again, not only do we desire that our sons and daughters shall marry within the fold, but we desire that they shall come into the house of the Lord and enter into the sacred and holy obligations of matrimony in the Lord’s approved and appointed way. We desire it again for their peace, for their salvation.”
  - “Oh, thank the Lord that in this Church we have no double standard. We have heard it, I have, from my childhood. I received from my mother and from, the organizations of the Church this admonition. She taught me to live as clean and as chaste anck, as pure as the girl I married and asked to be my wife, the mother of my children. She taught me that she would rather hear of my death than that I had been immoral and, had debauched myself. Thank God for that advice, and that I had the courage and the strength to keep it and to live up to it.”
  - “We are not to be absorbed. The Lord has decreed it. He knows how to keep us where we ought to be, and when we get straying off the track he knows how to bring us back, for he will not desert this people. His promise was that this work should never be overcome nor given to another people. He may chastise us, he may correct us, but he will not let us go astray. If we, therefore, keep his commandments, we not only shall escape chastisement, but we shall come into our glorious heritage, and the light of Zion shall continue to rise, for behold, her day has come, her light shall shine, the glory of it shall be reflected to the uttermost ends of the earth.”
October 1920 General Conference
- Who Are We?
  - “I am impressed, my brethren and sisters, that we are shown whom we are—chosen sons and daughters of God, sent into the world in this age for a specific purpose, and we are gathered here for the accomplishment of definite things.”
  - “For Zion must show the way. We have the key. We know the way, and we are in training to accomplish those things. I want to advise you, my brethren and sisters, there is no solution to those questions, except by and through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
  - “He has no purpose to deny the rich the blessings of heaven. He has no enmity in his heart against the rich whose hearts are broken.”
  - “I rejoice that in this Church we do have men of wealth and means whose hearts are broken, and who pay their honest tithing, whose example is a shining one for all Latter-day Saints ; but there are those who live only for themselves, who hold all they get for themselves, and therein they are in jeopardy.”
  - “It is a sin of this age, that men of poverty become envious and are in as great condemnation before the Lord as the rich whose hearts are not, broken, who are full of envy, who are full of malice toward those who have some of the things of this world.”
April 1920 General Conference
- Positive Testimonies
  - “We know what we know, and we testify to it in earnestness and in humility.”
  - “Joseph Smith did not know, because of earthly wisdom and his reading of the scriptures, more about our Father in heaven and his Son Jesus Christ, than the learned ministers of the world. Not by that means did he obtain his knowledge, but in the few moments that he knelt in the sacred grove in the presence of the Father and the Son he knew more about God the eternal Father and his Son Jesus Christ than all the ministers of all the world ever have known, or ever will know, except they shall be, in like manner, informed and instructed. So that the wisdom he had came to him from the source to which men must go if they shall know our Father in heaven.”
  - “We have the perfect system and it has, radiating through it, the power of the living God, the authority of the holy Priesthood, and the ordinances thus performed are efficacious and valid for men on the earth and remain sealed upon their heads through their faithfulness, even into the eternal world.”
October 1919 General Conference
- O, That I Were An Angel
  - “The Church has been subject to criticism, in the past, because of its unity, because of the willingness on the part of the membership of the Church to listen to the counsels of its leaders. I remember upon one occasion listening to a very severe criticism of the Church on the part of an eminent divine who charged that while we were the most perfect religious organization in the world, he feared the consequence because he said the membership of the Church is absolutely under the control and the domination of its leaders. I recall also that another one expressed it that the two most efficient organizations in the world were the German army and the “Mormon” Church, and he hoped that he would see the day when we would have equal efficiency and still retain individual liberty.”
  - “There are two means by which obedience may be obtained on the part of parents over their children. One is by force and compulsion. You may compel them to yield obedience. That method will work until your child becomes a man or a woman, and then your spell is broken, your power is gone. The other method is slower to obtain results, but it endures longer, and obedience is obtained through the exercise of love and patience and gentleness and kindness.”
  - “While, temporarily, the adversary who waged this war, to prevent the rule of right and of Christ in the earth, has been defeated in that way, he now tries another means to defy law and order and to stir up the hearts of men to rebellion against the forms of government to destroy the very foundations thereof. If he can not rule it, then he will wreck it. That is his spirit and the contest is on and my soul rejoices in every and all measures that look to the winning of the world for our Christ.”
June 1919 General Conference
- A New Calling
  - “I recall many years ago being in the city of Nauvoo, attending a celebration of newspaper men of the state of Illinois, in that city. The representative of one of the leading newspapers of that state was giving the history of the city of Nauvoo. He told of its growth until it became a city of twenty thousand people when Chicago was only a small village and St. Louis on the south was only a trading post. He told of the prejudice that inspired the hearts of those who drove the Latter-day Saints from Nauvoo, and how Nauvoo had gone down until it had but twelve hundred souls and not a railroad yet. He told of the vandalism that prompted the burning of the Nauvoo temple, and that even while the blackened walls of that temple stood, the steamboats stood half a day at the wharf to allow passengers to come and view its ruins. And then he told of the travels of the Latter-day Saints in their pilgrimage across the plains to these valleys of the mountains, how they had made the desert to blossom as the rose; and said, “Maybe God likes the ‘Mormons’ better than he does bigots and vandals, if not, why doesn’t he give the inhabitants of Nauvoo better evidence that it was all right to drive the ‘Mormons’ out?””
  - “Men and women who die shall not see Peter, they shall not look upon the face of the Redeemer of the world, they shall not have . Paul to come and visit them ; but they shall have the elders of this Church, whom the Lord sent to them in the earth; and they shall receive this gospel from none other, for the Lord will vindicate them, and he will have them honored. He will not discredit them. And when they go to the other side, we shall find standing in places of honor; representing the Lord Jesus Christ, men like President Joseph F. Smith, who will be given greater authority and greater power than they ever had upon the earth.”
- Scourges
  - “No man has been able to build so well, and no man has yet acquired knowledge and information so that he can secure himself against the hand of the Lord, if he desires to reach him and touch him; for we stand helpless before him.”
  - “Now I do not understand that the plague of influenza shall continue until the Lord comes, but I do think that one form or another of chastisement shall follow, with its seasons for repentance, for the preaching of the gospel, and crying to the nations of the earth: “Will you now listen unto the Lord,” and if they shall not listen, then another affliction will come, until men shall either repent, or they shall perish.”
  - “As I read the statement that those who were guilty of the excessive use of tobacco had fallen easy victims to the influenza, I thought that the Lord, in giving us the Word of Wisdom, was trying to make the Latter-day Saints immune, so that they might stand in the midst of the plagues and judgments that are to come. We will not escape them; we will be touched by them; but I want to testify to you that when the Latter-day Saints turn to the Lord and keep his commandments, and serve him in all things that have been required, these judgments shall not harm us; and our loved ones shall not go from us until the day appointed for them to go has come. But if we shall be touched, it is because the Lord is preparing us to stand in our places to be a light among the nations of the earth, the salt, the very savor of the world; and we cannot be that except we keep the commandments of the Lord.”
  - “I feel there is danger, in the midst of this material prosperity, that we may be disposed to build ourselves up financially rather than to devote ourselves to the accomplishment of the great work that the Lord laid upon the shoulders of our fathers, namely, to convert the world and to save ourselves.”

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