Or, wait, was it “Federal Agents Raid LDS Cannery!“? Actually, I’m not going to perpetuate the recent viral story that’s been making the rounds online and via email. The alleged “raid” on a Tennessee LDS (Mormon) Food Cannery, in which Federal agents demanded their customer list, might not actually have happened, but maybe it did. The story hasn’t been officially verified and the original informant cited by the Oath Keepers website, where the story was originally published, has now recanted his story.

Perhaps the federal agents went back with the neutralizer pen and flashed the people at the cannery.

There are confirmed reports of door-to-door assessments of disaster preparedness in Tennessee, which has some people concerned.

Meanwhile, those of us who do have food storage (as we’ve been counseled to do for decades by latter-day prophets), especially if you are a liberty-minded constitutionalists, are now even more likely to be labeled domestic terrorists thanks to actual federal laws. Some of us have a year or more of food storage, yet having just 7-days worth of food is enough to find yourself on the list of suspects. Don’t believe me? Get the facts from Senator Rand Paul and Judge Napolitano: youtube.com/watch?v=iD1T61oTrR8

Considering the corruption of the federal government and the reality of secret combinations, I wouldn’t be surprised if the story of federal agents demanding the LDS Cannery customer list is true. Far worse has been done on behalf of the United States government, on several occassions, including the murdering of millions of innocents.

Many of the freedoms once available in America have been destroyed. If the Constitution exists at all today for sure it is hanging by a thread. Prophets have warned us for centuries, unfortunately not enough have listened, and less have acted upon those warnings.

Things like this make me even more grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the liberty and joy that comes as a result of learning and living the truth. When considered in the eternal perspective many of these political issues seem silly, but one thing I know for sure is that it does matter what side we stand on. I’m not talking about what political party we side with, but what political principles we support. It does matter that we stand up for freedom and truth in whatever way that we can. It might be too late for the elders of Israel to save the Constitution but it’s not too late to save your soul, and hopefully others.

Additional reading:

• Federal agents raid Mormon food storage facility, demand list of customers storing emergency food
• Did Federal Agents Really Raid a Mormon Food Storage Facility?
• EVERYTHING You Wanted to Know On the “Federal Agent’s Raid on the LDS Cannery” Story
• STORY PULLED: Oath Keepers Alert: Federal Agents Demand Customer Lists From Mormon Food Storage Facility

We’ve heard this remarkable choir tonight. They sing with such tremendous power. This choir has become a great national treasure. Its roots reach back 150 years to the pioneer beginnings of these mountain communities. We have had a wonderful time listening to them. I wish they could go on all evening…I would wish particularly. At the conclusion of my remarks, they will sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, which has stirred audiences throughout the world.

Mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on
He has sounded forth the trumpet that will never call retreat
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat
O be swift my soul to answer Him, be jubilant my feet
Our God is marching on
In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me
As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free
While God is marching on

This great hymn of hope stirs us now as it did more than a century ago when it was first sung. I promise you, every one of you, that you will be moved in your hearts as you again hear these talented voices singing out these marvelous and eloquent words. These words speak of the theme of this meeting: that theme is recognition of, and trust in the Almighty, who has guided this nation since its inception. I salute Crystal Jolley for the excellent talk she has given.

A news magazine writer asked me the other day during an interview concerning my belief concerning the Constitution of our country. I replied that I felt it was inspired, that both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were brought forth under the inspiration of God to establish and sustain the freedom of the people of this nation. I told him I looked upon the Founding Fathers as men who believed in God, as men who prayed to God, as men who recognized God and wished to do His will. What a singular and remarkable group they were! As I look across the world today, I search in vain for such a group has walked together across the stage of history when this nation was born.

Charles Malek, Secretary General of the United States, once said on this campus, “I respect all men and it is from this respect for none that I say there are no great leaders in the world today. In fact, greatness itself is laughed to scorn. You should not be great today; you should sink yourself into the herd. You should not be distinguished from the crowd; you should simply be one of the many.” He continued, “The commanding voice is lacking, the voice which speaks little but which when it speaks, it speaks with compelling moral authority. This kind of voice is not congenial to this age. The age flattens and levels down every distinction into drab uniformity. Respect for the high, the noble, the great, the rare, the specimen that appears once every hundred or every thousand years is gone. Respect at all is gone. If you ask people whom and what people do respect, the answer is literally nobody and nothing. This is simply an unrespecting age; it is the age of utter mediocrity. To become a leader today, even a mediocre leader, is a most uphill struggle. You are constantly in every way and from every side pulled down. One wonders who of those living today will be remembered a thousand years from now, the way we remember with profound respect Plato and Aristotle, Christ and Paul and Augustine and Aquinas.” He concluded, “If you believe in prayer my friends, and I know that you do, then pray that God send great leaders, especially great leaders of the spirit.”

Just think of a moment of George Washington, of Franklin, of Madison, of the Adams’s, of Thomas Jefferson, and their associates who signed the Declaration of Independence, or participated in the Constitutional Convention. Where in all the world today can even one or two such men be found, let alone the great aggregation that participated in the birth of America?

Can anyone deny that they were raised up unto this very purpose, that working together, they brought forth on this continent an independent nation at the risk of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor? It is my conviction that while we’ve had a few great leaders since then, there has not been before or since, so large a group of talented, able, and dedicated men as those whom we call the Founding Fathers of this nation. For as long as they lived they acknowledged the hand of the Almighty in the affairs of this republic.

We have on our coinage and our currency a national motto. It simply says, In God We Trust. I know of no other nation with such a motto. Other nations use, By the Grace of God, but none other categorically states, In God We Trust. This is the foundation upon which this nation was established: an unequivocal trust in the power of the Almighty to guide and defend us. The hand of God was manifest when the United States of America came into being. It was evident even before then. Before disembarking from the Mayflower, our pilgrim fathers drafted and signed the compact which would become the instrument of their governance, the first such document drafted on this continent. It began with these words, “In the name of God, Amen.” It went on to say that the signers, “by these present, solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic.”

When George Washington resigned his commission as General of the Army he wrote, “I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last act of my official life, but commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendents of them to His holy keeping.” As Crystal has reminded us tonight, in his first inaugural address in 1789 he stated, “No people can be bound to acknowledge and ignore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.”

We posted the colors tonight and stood and gave a pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands. We said, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. That phrase, one nation under God, essentially comes from Abraham Lincoln. In the great Gettysburg address he stated, “This nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom.” That phrase was not in the pledge of allegiance that was spoken when I was a boy. Back in those days, all of us in grade school, if the weather permitted, would form at the front steps of the school. The flag would be posted and we would recite together the pledge of allegiance before going into the building for our daily school work. I am grateful for the addition of the words, One Nation Under God. To me, it is tremendously meaningful.

There are those in this nation today who would delete all this reference to Deity. They would take it out of the pledge of allegiance. They would take it from our coinage. They would remove it from any mention in our national life. John Wesley Heele has written, “Gettysburg was the high water mark of the rebellion. It involved the destiny of the union. Realizing this, it was Lincoln who at while battle was being fought was driven to his knees to struggle like Jacob of old, alone with God, until in Lincoln’s own words, “God told me he would give me Gettysburg and I believed Him.” When the news of the victory reached him, he gave to God the glory and set aside a day of national thanksgiving.

When Mrs. Margaret Thatcher was on this campus and I was talking with her, she said, “I cannot understand it; you have the motto, In God We Trust on your coinage and yet you cannot mention the name of Deity in the classrooms of your schools. She wondered, and I wonder about our consistency.

At this meeting tonight, the first verse of our national anthem was sung. We seldom hear the third verse, which include these words,

O thus be it ever when free-men shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation;
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”

As boys who would grow to become citizens of this nation, we repeated the scout oath including these words; On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country. Now that is even being challenged in the courts of the land. According to the Wall Street Journal, the state of New Jersey last year passed a law banishing the mention of God from state courtroom oaths. Following this action by the legislature, a county just decided to ban Bibles for such oaths because, “You know who is mentioned inside.”

Without acknowledgement of deity, without recognition of the Almighty as the ruling power of the universe, the all important element of personal and national accountability shrinks and dies. Are we so arrogant as to believe that we can get along without Him? We see the manifestation of that arrogance in the great host of social problems with which we deal these days: teen pregnancy, abandoned families and broken homes, failure to recognize the property and rights of others, gangs of young people aimlessly cruising the streets of our cities, and many other problems like these have resulted in substantial part at least, from failure to recognize that there is a God to whom someday, each of us must give an accounting.

The wars in which this nation has been involved during this, the most bloody century of all time have resulted from the greed, the avarice, the arrogance, the conceit, and egotism of men in power who sought to enslave and exercise dominion over others. Their very attitude has been totally incompatible with recognition of the Almighty to whom each of us is accountable.

There can be no doubt of the sickness in our society today. We cannot build prisons fast enough to accommodate the need. Humanism has replaced worship in the lives of so many. We are forsaking the Almighty and I fear He is forsaking us. We are closing the door against the God, whose sons and daughters we are. We sang, “My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty.” We need to sing again and again the fourth verse of that hymn:

Our Father’s God to Thee, Author of liberty, To Thee we sing
Long may our land be bright, with freedom’s holy light,
Protect us by thy might, Great God our king

Going back to George Washington’s first inaugural speech, he voiced the hope, “that the foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality.” He went on to say, “…there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which heaven itself has ordained.” The psalmist of old wrote, “The counsel of the Lord standeth forever. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” Paul the apostle declared, “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

I believe we are paying a very high price for our increasing secularism. Jefferson said, “God who gave us life, gave us liberty.” Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift of God?

Lincoln declared, “What constituted the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoasts; our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirity which prized liberty as the heritage of all men in all lands everywhere.”

We go back to the prophetic words of Alexis de Tocqueville, who came here from France as a young man in the early 1800s. After traveling widely he said, “I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors, in her fertile fields and boundless forests, in her rich minds and vast commerce, in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic congress and in her matchless Constitution, but not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and her power. America is great because America is good. And if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

I am convinced that if we are to continue to have the freedoms which came of the inspiration of the Almighty to our Founding Fathers, we must return to the God who is their true author. We need to worship him in spirit and in truth. We need to acknowledge his all powerful hand. We need to humble ourselves before him and seek his guidance in all that concerns matters of state. Do we believe in the separation of church and state? Of course we do, but that belief does not preclude a petition to the Almighty for wisdom and guidance as we walk through these perilous times.

We celebrate the freedom of our nation. We hold this festival in remembrance of this greatest of all boons and blessings. May we look to him as the author of our liberty. Is it too much to expect that prayer, public and private, be once again established in our national and private lives? Then with a general acknowledgement of the God in whom we put our trust, we may expect a diminution in our social problems, an increase in public and private morality, and a renewed sense of freedom and liberty. I realize that after the choir sings we shall have a benediction on this sacred service to be offered by Senator Bennett, but if you will bear with me, I wish to conclude my remarks with a few words of solemn prayer. I invite all of you to lower your heads and close your eyes.

Oh God, our Eternal Father, thou who presides over the nations and their people, we come unto thee in prayer. We thank thee for this great and sovereign nation of which we are citizens. Touch the minds of those of our Congress that they shall stand tall and independent in defense of the liberty of the people. Bless the chief executive. He is our president. Let thy spirit move upon him to bring to pass those measures which will lift the burdens of government from the backs of the people and keep this nation under God, a citadel of freedom standing as an example to all the world. Bless the Supreme Court of the United States which in recent days has declared unconstitutional a measure designed to secure the religious liberty of the people of this nation. May a way be found under thy divine inspiration to bring to pass another measure which will be sustained by the court. May thy peace rest upon this nation. May we as a people look to thee and live. May the benevolent hand of the almighty protect us from the evil forces of the world. May humanism and secularism bend to an increased knowledge of these our Father and our God. May a spirit of brotherhood spread throughout the land. As we pray to thee, we do so in our manner and respect the prayers of others who speak after their manner. That thou wilt hear us all as we lift our voices in behalf of our beloved nation. Almighty Father, hear us, guide us, protect us, make us both strong and benevolent before the world. Forgive our erring ways. May we turn back to thee in our search for wisdom, for guidance, for direction, we humbly ask in Jesus’ sacred name, Amen.

Through revelations granted to the Prophet Joseph and his predecessors, we learn some profound things about our relationship to God and our ultimate des­tiny. We learn that Jesus Christ, as the Son of God, progressed “from grace to grace, until he received a fulness”¹ and that we may follow in that same path. He said, “For if you keep my commandments you shall receive of his fulness, and be glorified in me as I am in the Father; therefore, I say unto you, you shall receive grace for grace.”² In explaining the natural conclusion of this pattern, Joseph Smith said:

Here, then, is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be gods your­selves, and to be kings and priests to God, . . . by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power.³

Joseph Smith also referred to God’s use of law in this process:

The first principles of man are self-existent with God. God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with Himself, so that they might have one glory upon another.⁴

I cite one more teaching from the Prophet that adds the remaining element to this equation—agency:

All persons are entitled to their agency, for God has so ordained it. He has constituted mankind moral agents, and given them power to choose good or evil; to seek after that which is good, by pursuing the pathway of holiness in this life, which brings peace of mind, and joy in the Holy Ghost here, and a fulness of joy and happiness at His right hand hereafter; or to pursue an evil course, going on in sin and rebellion against God, thereby bringing condemna­tion to their souls in this world, and an eternal loss in the world to come.⁵

All of this declares that we have a potential made possible by God beyond anything we can fully comprehend or appreciate at present. And we recognize, of course, that none of us will achieve the ultimate end, the status of eternal life with God our Father, in a matter of days or years or with­out substantial help. We require the help of one another and an incalculable measure of divine grace originating in Christ and administered through the Holy Ghost. Nevertheless, our own choices will always be critical to what we become. And the capacity and power to choose are, as Joseph Smith declared, dependent on laws instituted by or under the authority of God.

Such laws link particular actions to fixed outcomes. If a given choice did not always and invari­ably yield the same result, we could not in the end control outcomes, and the power to choose would be meaningless. And even with law, if we are not free to act, either to follow or reject it, we likewise could not use law to progress from grace to grace. I believe that Satan’s proposals in the premortal world attacked both of these principles. He wanted to be vested with a power of compul­sion over the souls of men and with the honor or power of God:

And I, the Lord God, spake unto Moses, saying: That Satan, whom thou hast commanded in the name of mine Only Begotten, is the same which was from the beginning, and he came before me, saying—Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.⁶

Had Satan been granted power to dictate our choices, we would have become nothing more than his puppets, eternally dependent upon him. It is my personal opinion that in demanding “Give me thine honor,” Satan was also coveting God’s power to establish the law, and that it was his intention to use that power arbitrarily—to apply, revoke, and change laws in an arbitrary fashion that would destroy our power to act indepen­dently and to choose our destiny. For whatever reason, Satan was excep­tionally persuasive in lobbying for his approach. Happily, his plan was rejected, although echoes continue to reverberate in the world around us.

The deities of ancient Greek and Roman mythology were often arbitrary beings. While they were supposed to possess remarkable powers, they were ruled by their passions. As they fought and jockeyed for position among themselves, or simply vented feelings of lust, anger, or frustration, mere mortals were sometimes caught in the cross fire. We can be grateful, to say the least, that the true and living God is nothing like the imaginary Zeus or Jupiter.

The scripture states, “There are many kingdoms. . . . And unto every kingdom is given a law; and unto every law there are certain bounds also and conditions.”⁷ Apparently, laws with their con­ditions and bounds may vary in different kingdoms or spheres—as, for example, the laws of the several kingdoms that prevail in our postmortal life. The Lord says that His celestial kingdom is populated by those who are “sanctified through the law which I have given unto you, even the law of Christ,”⁸ and that those who cannot abide this celestial law must inherit a lesser kingdom whose law they are able and willing to follow.⁹ While differing laws may apply in different parts of God’s creation, the laws that do apply do not themselves vary. Such beings and creations as are subject to them can rely on them to achieve their divine potential. We are told that those who are governed by law are preserved, perfected, and sanctified by the same.¹⁰

Under the umbrella of divine law and order applicable to the “kingdom” that is our present mor­tal world, God delegates to us, His children, the opportunity and responsibility to establish laws and legal systems to govern human relations and conduct. Let me quote from section 134 of the Doctrine and Covenants:

We believe that governments were instituted of God for the benefit of man; and that he holds men accountable for their acts in relation to them, both in making laws and administering them, for the good and safety of society.

We believe that no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life.¹¹

These standards—(1) that laws are to be made and administered for “the good and safety of soci­ety” and (2) that they must secure to each individual the rights of life, property, and conscience—bespeak a legal environment in which man may progress toward his divine destiny, to become what God has ordained he may become. They establish the stability, order, and means whereby each individual may exercise moral agency. They produce a setting wherein each person, if he or she so desires, can “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him”¹² and all that that entails.

In the infant days of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Lord expressed in a revelation to Joseph Smith the wisdom and benefit of organizing the Church and its work “according to the laws of man; That your enemies may not have power over you; that you may be preserved in all things; that you may be enabled to keep my laws.”¹³ I read this to mean that, as a general principle, submission to the laws of man will offer very real protections, providing in effect a safe haven within which we can act to obey and serve God.

In his book The Clash of Orthodoxies, Robert P. George has an interesting chapter titled “What Is Law?” He examines the debates among legal thinkers and philosophers in the English-speaking world over the last century, beginning with Oliver Wendell Holmes, about the origins and nature of law. He cites, for example, the group whose legal realist movement flourished to some extent in the 1930s and 1940s. These scholars debunked the idea of legal objectivity; to be realistic, they main­tained, we “should abandon the idea that law pre-exists and is available to guide legal decisions.”¹⁴ They argued that judges’ reasoning and citation of laws as the basis of their decisions are in reality “mere legal rationalization of decisions reached on other grounds.”¹⁵

George reviews other theories such as “legal positivism,” which in some versions holds to “the idea that law ought not to embody or enforce moral judgments.”¹⁶ Other proponents, however, acknowledge that the content of legal rules reflects “nothing so much as the moral judgments pre­vailing in any society regarding the subject matters regulated by law.”¹⁷ For George himself, “legal rules and principles function as practical reasons for citizens, as well as judges and other officials, because the citizens appreciate their moral value.”¹⁸ He subscribes to the proposition lex iniusta non est lex (an unjust law is not law), by which he means, if I understand him correctly, that it is essential for the laws and legal systems created by man to have a basis in natural law or morality.¹⁹

In his 1993 encyclical letter titled “Veritatis Splendor,” Pope John Paul II expressed the relevant Catholic doctrine in these words:

Only by obedience to universal moral norms does man find full confirmation of his personal uniqueness and the possibility of authentic moral growth. . . . These norms in fact represent the unshakable foundation and solid guar­antee of a just and peaceful human coexistence, and hence of genuine democracy, which can come into being and develop only on the basis of the equality of all its members, who possess common rights and duties. When it is a matter of the moral norms prohibiting intrinsic evil, there are no privileges or exceptions for anyone. It makes no difference whether one is the master of the world or the “poorest of the poor” on the face of the earth. Before the demands of morality we are all absolutely equal.²⁰

Latter-day Saints would necessarily be included among those who believe in preexisting and uni­versal natural law—or, as we might express it, law rooted in the preexisting justice and order of God. I firmly agree that insofar as humanly possible, man’s laws and legal systems should be tied to God’s laws and should reflect the same ultimate purpose: to foster our becoming all that we can become here and hereafter. People instinctively appreciate the value of law that has valid moral underpin­nings because it is in their nature as spiritual beings and children of God—the ultimate moral Being. The light of Christ that we sometimes call conscience lights every person who comes into this world.²¹

Some of you may be thinking, “This is all very grand, but where, for example, does tax law fit in?” I would answer that it probably does not, since tax codes are the work of the devil, right? But in all seriousness, even the very mundane can have a role if it is supportive of—or at least not inconsistent with—overarching divine principles and purpose. The Uniform Commercial Code, for example, would seem to have little if any contribution to make in helping us achieve our divine potential, but even something so unethereal can have value as part of a larger legal structure that supports fundamental fairness, mini­mizes strife, rewards honest labor, preserves stable families, and, ultimately, enshrines moral agency.

Returning again to the Doctrine and Covenants:

We believe that all governments necessarily require civil officers and magistrates to enforce the laws of the same; and that such as will administer the law in equity and justice should be sought for and upheld by the voice of the people if a republic, or the will of the sovereign.²²

Here, more specifically, we come to many of you in the profession of law. You live in societies where the system of “civil officers and magistrates” includes judges and lawyers who occupy a vital role in administering the law “in equity and justice.” You whose first loyalty is to God can press in a variety of ways for laws and systems that track the divine model or that at least do not undermine it. Let me be clear that I am not speaking of any endeavor to impose upon society by some sort of fiat what we see as the appropriate application of divinely revealed principles. We cannot, and we make no attempt to do so. I am speaking of advocacy and persuasion. At the same time, it will not do to pretend that an individual or group may not participate in the debates and processes that shape our laws simply because their arguments are based on moral norms or because their moral vision is not shared by all citizens. Essentially all legislation is based on moral judgments—religious, secular, or otherwise, and all parties to the ongoing contest seek to have their ethical and moral concerns heard. In the end we are governed by those that prevail in the public mind. It is not an imposition of religion for religionists to take part in the discussion, and there is no justice in one side with deeply held values seeking to silence another because it espouses different deeply held values.

Consider the example of William Wilberforce and others of his time who sought to conform the laws of Great Britain to a higher moral standard of equity and justice. Wilberforce is rightly remembered and revered for his central role in the abolition of the slave trade that was then domi­nated by British ships. For some 18 years, beginning in 1789, he labored as a member of Parliament to end this evil commerce and lay the groundwork for the abolition of slavery altogether:

Wilberforce’s involvement in the abolition movement was motivated by a desire to put his Christian principles into action and to serve God in public life. . . . [He] sensed a call from God, writing in a journal entry in 1787 that “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of Manners [moral values].”²³

Initially, Wilberforce’s bills in the House of Commons were easily defeated. Then, just as momentum began to build, the French Revolution and slave revolts in the West Indies caused a shift back to caution and delay. During the protracted campaign, “Wilberforce’s commitment never wavered, despite frustration and hostility. He was supported in his work by fellow members of the so-called Clapham Sect. . . . Holding evangelical Christian con­victions, and consequently dubbed ‘the Saints,’ the group lived in large adjoining houses in Clapham.”²⁴ Finally, in 1807, Wilberforce’s Abolition Bill passed the House of Lords and was pre­sented to the House of Commons. “As tributes were made to Wilberforce, whose face streamed with tears, the bill was carried by 283 votes to 16.”²⁵

It is significant to recognize that while Wilberforce, as a member of Parliament, took the lead­ing role in official circles, the active and devoted efforts of many others with no political portfo­lio were essential to success in the campaign to end the slave trade. The collaboration of Thomas Clarkson, a fellow graduate of Wilberforce at St. John’s Cambridge, was especially important. Also critical was the part played by members of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, a group made up primarily of like-minded British Quakers and Anglicans that included Clarkson and that Wilberforce joined in 1791.

The society was highly successful in raising public awareness and support, and local chapters sprang up throughout Great Britain. Clarkson travelled the country researching and collecting firsthand testimony and sta­tistics, while the committee promoted the campaign, pioneering techniques such as lobbying, writing pamphlets, holding public meetings, gaining press attention, organizing boycotts and even using a campaign logo: an image of a kneeling slave above the motto “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” designed by the renowned pottery-maker Josiah Wedgwood. The committee also sought to influence slave-trading nations such as France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Holland and the United States, corresponding with anti-slavery activists in other countries and organ­ising the translation of English-language books and pamphlets. These included books by former slaves Ottobah Cugoano and Olaudah Equiano, who had published influential works on slavery and the slave trade in 1787 and 1789, respectively. They and other free blacks, collectively known as “Sons of Africa,” spoke at debating societies and wrote spirited letters to newspapers, periodicals and prominent figures, as well as public letters of support to campaign allies. . . . The campaign proved to be the world’s first grassroots human rights campaign, in which men and women from different social classes and backgrounds volunteered to end the injustices suffered by others.²⁶

William Wilberforce and his allies provide an encouraging example of success after much labor and against daunting opposition. Not every effort, however, will succeed—at least not ini­tially. Consider a more recent example in the arena of things that bear on marriage and families and the rearing of children. The “no-fault” divorce laws that have been adopted in the United States and elsewhere were warned against decades ago by President David O. McKay and others. The disastrous consequences visited on the institution of mar­riage since then are clearly evident, with children being the primary victims—some of whom, given their suffering, are now reluctant to marry and rear families themselves. But whatever the setbacks in our striving to sustain family or other moral imperatives among our fellowman, surely we must, as Paul declared, fight the good fight.²⁷ Mohammed is reported to have said, “Who[so]ever sees a wrong and is able to put it right with his hand, let him do so; if he can’t, then with his tongue; if he can’t, then in his heart, and that is the bare minimum of faith.”²⁸

Of all the moral imperatives we seek to embrace and defend in our legal systems, in my opin­ion it is individual agency and accountability that must always be preeminent, because agency is so basic to realizing our God-given potential. On the one hand, we should uphold those legal and political concepts that protect legitimate individual action, and, on the other, we should oppose those theories and schemes that exert unjust dominion or diminish predictability and consistency in the operation of law. True, there is some degree of compulsion in any law, but generally it is the kind designed to preserve space and opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Other pro­posals, however, look to compel our acceptance or tolerance of actions that offend the moral con­science. A potential example would be the case of a doctor being forced to participate in an abortion against his or her conscientious objection on pain of forfeiting the right to practice medicine.

All man-made legal systems are imperfect and include elements of injustice. Still, you can strive to make the legal system within which you live and work come as close as possible to the perfectly just “legal system” of God. You can take as your guide not only the wisdom of similarly minded men and women from the past but also the teachings of the scriptures, prophets, and the Holy Spirit. In this, as in other matters, you are invited to study out in your own mind concepts regarding the stan­dards, direction, and even the specifics of what the law should be, how the legal system should be structured, and how it should operate and then to ask God if it be right.²⁹ Surely you are entitled in your role and sphere to revelation on things that bear so directly on not only the present estate of man but also his ultimate future.

God finds His glory, as Joseph Smith said, in providing laws by which other beings can come to enjoy the same perfections and glory He possesses.³⁰ Our view and motivations should be the same. Rather than seeing law as an instrument of domination, it is our mission to use it as an enabling power to help men and women achieve greater independence and ultimate potential. We do so by acting to have our earthly governmental and legal systems mirror as closely as possible the divine order.

After all I have said in praise of law and all the effort I have enjoined you to make in sustaining and defending a moral order, we must in the end acknowledge that we cannot achieve ultimate jus­tice apart from Jesus Christ. To establish and preserve the law is a great good, but the greatest good we can do in helping others become what they can become will be to lead them to the Savior. Only His Atonement has the power to overcome all weakness and imperfection and to make right all injustice. Only He can convert offense and injury into blessings; only He can bring life again to a life unjustly cut short; only He can return a perfect body for one diseased or malformed; only He can reinstate beloved associations lost and make them permanent; only He can make right the suffering entailed upon the innocent by ignorance and oppression; only He can erase the impact of sin on one who is wronged; only He can remove the stain and effect of sin in the sinner; only He can eliminate sor­row and wipe away all tears;³¹ only He can provide immortality; only His grace can compensate for our inadequacy and justify us before that law that enables us to become joint heirs of eternal life with Him. Of the glorious reality of the living Christ, I bear my witness.

notes

1. D&C 93:13.
2. D&C 93:20.
3. History of the Church, 6:306.
4. History of the Church, 6:312.
5. History of the Church, 4:45.
6. Moses 4:1.
7. D&C 88:37–38.
8. D&C 88:21.
9. See D&C 88:21–24.
10. See D&C 88:34.
11. D&C 134:1–2.
12. Moroni 10:32.
13. D&C 44:4–5.
14. Robert P. George, The Clash of Orthodoxies (Wilmington, Delaware: isi Books, 2001), 219.
15. Clash, 219.
16. Clash, 222.
17. Clash, 223.
18. Clash, 226.
19. See Clash, 227–28.
20. Pope John Paul II, “Veritatis Splendor,” 6 August 1993, 91; emphasis in original.
21. See D&C 84:45–46; 88:7–14; 92:2.
22. D&C 134:3.
23. Wikipedia, William Wilberforce, 31 January 2011, 8:23 p.m.
24. Wikipedia.
25. Wikipedia.
26. Wikipedia.
27. See 2 Timothy 4:7.
28. Qanta A. Ahmed, “Fulfilling Our Duty as Muslim-Americans,” Wall Street Journal, 7 January 2011, A11.
29. See D&C 9:8.
30. See Moses 1:39.
31. See Isaiah 25:8.

YouTube Link…

I intend to speak bluntly. We are living in a period of grave danger. It is fitting that we meet in Philadelphia, the scene of one of history’s most illustrious moments. One hundred ninetytwo years ago, September 17, 1787, thirty-nine men affixed their signatures to a document that formed a government which institutionalized safeguards to protect the freedom of its citizens. Few today appreciate the significance of this American Revolution which indeed, was a revolution for the rights of mankind everywhere.

What happened on that occasion distinguishing this revolution in the annals of time, is that men determined they, the people, were sovereign under God. The Declaration of Independence affirmed the doctrine that man’s most basic rights of life, liberty and property were unalienable. That affirmation rejected the political ideology of the centuries that such rights were subject to a sovereign’s benevolence or whim.

Too few appreciate the fact that we live in one of history’s most exceptional moments, a time of unprecedented freedom. Freedom, as the western world knows it, has been experienced by only a small fraction of the human family at any time. The stark reality of this fact led two distinguished University of Rochester professors to publish this statement during America’s Bicentennial:

Humanity has survived in various states of tyranny for thousands of years. One might even say this is the natural state ofaffairs for man. Future historians may look back and see the period 1776 to 1976 as a brief 200 year accident in the history of man in which real freedom existed for all…

Pause for a moment and ponder our legacy of freedom. Few nations enjoy the freedom to speak, freedom to own or participate in ownership of property and business, freedom to worship, freedom to print, freedom to travel at home or abroad, freedom even to censure public officials, freedom to have the privacy we desire, and freedom of private enterprise, though this latter freedom is greatly threatened by a mentality toward collectivism in recent decades.

But those freedoms are the heritage of the western world!

Today this freedom is being threatened by another revolution, a recurrence of the barbaric practice of political propaganda, human subjugation, and even mass genocide. That system of slavery, Marxism, has imprisoned the bodies and minds of over one billion of the earth’s inhabitants. Consider the contradiction of its ideology -

It proclaims peace, yet leaves in its wake the groans of the dying and the misery of the human family.

It predicts paradise on earth, but has left a trail of carnage, bloodshed, oppression, and depopulated nations -a desolate wilderness. If Communism is paradise, why have half a million Vietnamese fled from paradise?

It promises equality of privileges, but stands in contempt of the human rights of men everywhere.

Equality comes only in death and millions who have coveted Communist equality have prematurely achieved that end. Dictatorship, despotism, and demagoguery are hallmarks of its institutional soul.

George F. Will, a noted columnist, recently wrote that even the French philosophers who, after reading Solzhenitsyn, concluded (better late than never) that the “Gulag is the essence, not an accident, of Communism.”

Yet so many in the West, supposedly enlightened to Communism’s grand design for world domination, accommodate themselves to it, grant apologies for its “excesses,” capitulate to its demands, and permit the free world to become encircled by its tentacles.

Recently the President of the United States congratulated the nation on having overcome its “inordinate fear of Communism.” Perhaps he is right in one sense: there is a complacency toward Communism. But I agree with Andrew Knight, editor of The Economist of London, that the influence of the United States has been diminished in recent years because there is a lack of perception of the problem. (U.S. News and World Report, October IS, 1979, p. 77.)

I ask: Is it inordinate fear of Communism to censure its record of almost total suppression of individual rights, a fact hardly mentioned by an administration whose hallmark was to be for “human rights” of men everywhere?

Is it inordinate fear of Communism to acknowledge 60 million political prisoners in the gulag?

Is it inordinate fear of Communism to recognize the fiendish butchery of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia where perhaps over 2 million died? This is a fact that almost escaped notice in the western press.

Is it inordinate fear of Communism to distrust the Kremlin’s claim that its military build-up is only defensive?

The struggle for freedom is more momentous than a decade ago, yet the conventional wisdom says, “You must learn to live with Communism and give up your ideas of national sovereignty.” Tell that to the millions – yes, the scores of millions – who have met death or imprisonment under the tyranny of Communism! Such would be the death knell of freedom and all we hold dear.

I am a witness to nations and people deprived of their freedom. I was there. I watched the great Iron Curtain drop around nations which formerly had prized their freedom good people. I was aghast as they were written off by the stroke of a pen. I saw Poland abandoned by nations with a heritage of freedom – the United States and Great Britain.

I was in Warsaw in June of 1946. I shared a room with seven other men in the Polonia Hotel, the only hotel even partially intact in the great city of Warsaw. The United States Ambassador, Bliss Lane, had his office in part of the building. He was so saddened that he resigned and wrote the book, I Saw Poland Betrayed. which detailed the failure of the United States and England to keep their promise that the Poles would have a free election after the war.

I was saddened when the United States refused to help at the time of the Hungarian revolution – when Freedom Fighters with bare hands and stones resisted bullets, tanks, and artillery. I confess I was ashamed at the response of my country. Freedom did not die that day (October 23, 1956) for Hungary alone. Hope died for many in other captive nations and has only recently been somewhat revived by courageous men willing to speak out against oppression.

As the Cabinet member assigned to agriculture, there seemed to be little I could do. But I knew we must respond in some way. I urged the President to make a strong, vigorous denunciation of the brutality of the Soviet Union in Hungary. I was asked to draft such a statement which was later released on Human Rights Day. Here is a portion of that statement:

The recent orgy of brutality in Hungary has moved free people everywhere to reactions of horror and revulsion. Our hearts are filled with sorrow. Our deepest sympathy goes out to the courageous, liberty loving people of Hungary.

The Hungarian Massacre repudiates and negates almost every article in the Declaration of Human Rights.

It denies that men are born free and equal in dignity and rights, and that all should act in the spirit of brotherhood. It denies the human right to life, liberty, and security of person.

It denies the principles that no one shall be subjected to torture, or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

It denies that all are equal before the law and entitled to its equal protection.

It denies the right to fair and public hearings by an independent and impartial tribunal.

It denies the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

It denies the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

It denies the right to freedom of peaceful assembly.

It denies that no one shall be held in slavery or servitude.

It denies that the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.

It denies the right to leave one’s country or to seek in other countries asylum from persecution.

That these human rights have been so flagrantly repudiated is cause for mourning, national and worldwide.

…Once again the tree of liberty has been watered by the blood of martyrs. The courage and sacrifices of the brave Hungarian people have written anew in crimson the sentiment attributed to Patrick Henry nearly two centuries ago (“Give me liberty or give me death.”)

On this Human Rights Day, it is for each one of us to recognize anew that we are brothers in our Father’s house, and each is truly his brother’s keeper. We cannot shed that responsibility, nor do we want to. Let us resolve on this day that the world shall never forget what tyranny has done in Hungary.

Yes, I have stood face to face with tyranny. I was host to Mr. Nikita Khrushchev for a half-day when he visited the United States. I am not proud of this. I stated my reservation to the President and I still feel it was a mistake to invite this godless despot, dedicated to our destruction, as a state visitor.

Since that day, I have witnessed the Soviet Union spread its abominable ideology throughout the world. Every stratagem is used – trade, war, revolution, violence, hate, and immorality – to accomplish its ends. Since 1939, Europe lost three countries and parts of five others. In Asia, Outer Mongolia, North Korea, Vietnam and Laos are Communist dominated. In Africa, Russia controls Angola and has a military foothold in other countries. In the Mideast, Moscow influences Syria, Iraq, and South Yemen. In Latin America, she has a satellite in Cuba, which in turn exports the Marxist revolution in Africa and Central America.

I sadly confess that I cannot understand how the United States of America can maintain diplomatic relations with a nation determined to bring about our destruction.

I did not believe I would ever see the day when my own nation would be signatory to legitimatizing the Soviet conrol over the so-called captive nations of Eastern Europe but I have. The Helsinki accords were to “open up” the closed Russian society and countries under Soviet domination. There was to be greater freedom of thought, religion, travel, and “human contacts.”

Today we must conclude that the “Spirit of Helsinki” is nothing more than a diplomatic triumph for the Soviet Union, and a solidifying of their domination over the captive nations.

I did not believe I would ever see the day when we would accede to the expulsion of liberty and freedom-loving Taiwan from the United Nations on conditions of granting full participative membership to atheistic Red China – but I have!

I did not expect to see the day when we would ever grant the diplomatic, military and political concessions to Marxist leaders – but I have!

Nor did I ever think we would see the time when the United States would permit a Soviet brigade 90 miles off its shoreline in clear violation of the Monroe Doctrine – but I have!

The Soviet Union is not interested in the freedom and the human rights of all nations. Does the mention of these countries inspire confidence in the Soviets: Mozambique, Ethiopia, South Yemen, Rhodesia, Afghanistan, Cambodia? Everyone of these countries is a symbol of Communist aggression and the contempt of the Soviet Union for the free world and the rights of men everywhere. No one with the interest of freedom for all men will really say that the “detente” process has brought about a relaxation of tension, or has contributed toward the betterment of the world in general.

Now I sincerely believe that the United States and the West have an interest in and obligation to make friends of leaders of free nations. I do not believe that we are obligated, in the interest of peace, to barter away national sovereignty, nor to export technology to a nation that has as its declared purpose the subjugation of free men of all nations. It is a matter of record that the Soviet Union has violated almost every agreement made with the United States.

How has the Soviet Union gained a stranglehold on one-third of the world’s population? Alexander Solzhenitsyn answers: “It was because of a process on the part of Americans which has been in progress for more than 30 years of short-sighted concessions, a process of giving up and giving up, in hope that at some point the wolf will have eaten enough.” His appeal to American leaders is to “stop the senseless process of endless concessions to aggressors, these clever legal arguments for why we should make one concession after another give up more and more and more.” (U.s. News and World Report, July 14, 1975.)

Then in one of the most humiliating requests ever made to leaders of free nations, Solzhenitsyn implored: “When they bury us … please do not send them the shovels … or the latest earthmoving equipment.” (Warning to the West, p. 84.)

How much more humiliation must the West endure before our spine stiffens?

It is a fact that the West has built and sustained a faltering Soviet economy. Were it not for our help, Russia could not feed its own people.

There are many things that the West must do to strengthen its position to effectively retard the onward march of Marxism. Politically, economically and militarily, we stand vulnerable. I am a strong advocate for political, economic and military strength, but these alone, I think, are not the ultimate answer to our problem.

The greatest resource against Communism is spiritual.

There are only two possible sources of man’s rights. Rights are either God-given as part of the divine plan or they are granted by government as part of a political plan. If we accept the premise that human rights are granted by government, then we must be willing to accept the corollary that they can be denied by government. I, for one, shall never accept that premise. As the French political economist, Frederick Bastiat, said,

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.” (The Law, 1850, p. 6.)

It is my sober conviction that no people can long maintain freedom unless their political institutions are founded in a faith in a Supreme Being and belief in the existence of moral law. This is the foundation of Western civilization. When men reject the premise that God is the source of law, they countenance a political system based on human law. Man thus becomes his own god, and the state the benefactor of privileges. May I illustrate the consequences of these two separate premises.

When you accept the premise that the source of law and man’s rights come from a Supreme Being, you at once recognize the sanctity of the individual, his right to free expression, his right to possession of private property. The dictum that a man’s home is his castle originated in divine law. Since man was created to be free, the only logical form of government is self-government; for acceptance of ruler imposed authority is an implicit repudiation of one’s rights to free expression and ultimate liberty.

The most fundamental unit of self-government is the family, with father and mother instilling fundamental principles and skills in their children. This is the rock foundation of society, and a man’s success will never be greater than what he attains with his own family. Institutions of government were initially established to protect man’s freedom. A repudiation of our heritage is to accept – as so many Western Democracies have accepted – the supremacy of the State over the individual and family, which is the essence of Marxism.

Under self-government, when the civil government and its agencies lose their servant-role, you may know that we have slipped from our spiritual moorings.

What man thinks about God will ultimately decide what he will think, believe and accept about everything else. This is why both reason and religious conviction lead me to accept the divine origin of man’s rights.

The antithesis to this belief is represented by atheistic Marxism. There the State is supreme; man exists to serve the State. Inexorable moral laws are regarded as mythical. Since the State is the source of law, the State is god. The State, therefore, can control one’s family, education, religion, economics, property, and, yes, his very life. The individual is regarded, at best, as an economic resource. Once his usefulness is fulfilled, his life becomes expendable.

Atheism and agnosticism have consequences. When man refuses to recognize God as the source of his rights, he abrogates his right to denounce the State. The State may decide to expropriate his property, or capriciously determine to take his life. How can one take a stand against evil unless he recognizes a source of law higher than man? On what moral grounds can he object? It is a truism that “Men will either be governed by God, or ruled by tyrants.” (William Penn.)

The Communists recognize, even if some in the West do not, that the spiritual foundation is the essence of our strength. This is why they will use any device, resort to any method, expend any resource to discredit and repudiate the moral foundations of Western society. “Under present conditions,” they say, “religion appears to be the main opponent … and, consequently, an atheistic education must be prominent as a constituent part in developing a communist world outlook.” (U.A. Karpovsky, “The Cause of Religious Survival and the Means for its Elimination,” Voprosy Fi/osofli [Problems of Philosophy], No.4, Moscow, April 1964.)

With the trend in the free world moving away from self government to dependence on the state, is there not evidence that the Marxists are successful in developing a communist world outlook?

I ask you delegates to this Freedoms Conference: If we do not accept the existence of a Supreme Being; that God is the source of moral law, what more do we have to offer than Marx? On what basis can we morally resist tyranny?

I say to you with all the fervor of my soul that God intended men to be free. Rebellion against tyranny is a righteous cause. It is an enormous evil for any man to be enslaved to any system contrary to his own will. For that reason men, 200 years ago, pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.

No nation which has kept the commandments of God has ever perished, but I say to you that once freedom is lost, only blood – human blood – will win it back.

Freedom is an eternal, God-given principle. There is no genuine happiness without freedom, nor is there any security or peace without freedom. After traveling in practically all of the free countries of the world and several times behind the Iron Curtain, I say that Marxism is the greatest evil in this world and the greatest threat to all we hold dear.

Of all sad things in the world, the saddest is to see a people who have once known liberty and freedom and then lost it.

I have seen the unquenchable yearning of the human heart for liberty on two unforgettable occasions. These experiences are indelibly etched on the memory of my soul.

I saw this yearning spirit in the faces of many European people, in the aftermath of World War II. It fell my lot, as a Church leader, to be among the first to go into war-torn European countries and distribute food, clothing, and bedding to the suffering members of the Church and others. I saw first-hand entire nations prostrate, flat on their backs economically. I looked into the face of hunger – the pale, the thin, the many dressed in rags, and some barefooted. I saw the refugees, the poor unwanted souls who were driven from their homes to destinations unknown. They came with all their possessions on their backs. I visited some of their homes, shacks where as many as twenty-two people were living in one room – four complete families. I saw some fortunate to get hold of an American magazine and pore over its pages and wonder if what they saw could possibly be true. I saw the struggles on every hand to get to America or England, some legal and others illegal, all in an effort to enjoy freedom and liberty. These were a people who had once known a measure of freedom, but had let it slip away.

The second unforgettable experience was when I was in Russia in 1959. We had been touring seven European countries as a part of the objective of the government of the United States to develop world markets and create good will.

Mr. Khrushchev and Mr. Matskevich, the Minister of Agriculture, had promised me that I would be able to visit a Christian Church in Russia. During our stay there, the guides did everything possible to prevent this. Finally, on the way to the airport, before leaving Moscow, I insisted that we go to a Christian Church which I had located. It was only a few minutes out of the way. Reluctantly, we were taken to the church. Our guides had told us that the churches were empty, that no one attended church any more, that religion was the opiate of the people, and that the people had risen above religion.

We arrived at a Baptist Church and found it full to overflowing. We learned that they were holding three services on Sunday and two on weekdays to accommodate the desires of the people. I looked into the faces of the people. Most were middle-aged and older. As the ten members of the America press were being ushered to pews, which were vacated for our unexpected visit, people reached out and grasped for our hands to touch us. They were in misery and yet a light shone through their eyes. Like frightened children they gripped our hands.

Later in the service, I was asked to address the congregation. I spoke to them about God and Jesus Christ, I encouraged them to be unafraid and to pray for peace. I spoke to them about the reality of a resurrection, that this life is only a part of eternity. In closing, I told them that truth would endure, that time was on the side of truth.

I don’t recall all I said, but I do remember being inspired by their rapt faces. As we were about to leave, the whole congregation spontaneously broke into a favorite hymn of my youth, “God Be With You Till We Meet Again.” As we walked down from the platform and the members of the press walked up the aisles, the congregation waved their handkerchiefs in farewell. It seemed all 1500 were waving as we left. Through it all, members of the American press witnessed the event with tear-dimmed eyes.

As we were leaving the church, a young lady Russian guide whispered to my wife, “I am a Christian, too.”

It has been my privilege to speak before many church groups in all parts of the world, but the impact of that experience is almost indescribable. I shall never forget that evening as long as I live. Seldom, have I felt the oneness of mankind and the unquenchable yearning of the human heart for freedom so keenly as at that moment.

Never will I forget this victory of spirit over tyranny, oppression, and ignorance. Never can I doubt the ultimate deliverance of the Russian people.

Today we are in a worldwide battle for the bodies and souls of men. It is a battle between two opposing systems freedom and slavery. The persistent efforts of God-respecting men will determine whether freedom is victorious in our time. A faithless generation will not be equal to the task. Is it not time for us to reevaluate our commitment to the principles which the Marxists fear the most?

I fully believe that we can turn things around if enough men and women in the Free World will have the determination, the morality, and the faith to do so.

Here in the West we hold in our hands the only hope of mankind; and it will be to our shame and disgrace before God and man if we allow that hope to wither and die. May God bless us to be equal to the task.

This opposition to authority did not fade away with the end of that decade. If anything, the tendency has intensified. Some claim that any exercise of authority is, per se, abusive and repressive, that it infringes on their rights. You have noted, I am sure, the persistent focus on rights and the scant attention paid to responsibilities. There are those today who challenge even the authority of God. Because it is now so pervasive, if you are not careful, something of that attitude could seep into and infect your own feelings. I want today to reinforce in your mind and in your heart the love you feel for your Heavenly Father. I want to reinforce your allegiance to God and your desire to be a fit and loyal subject in His kingdom.

At one point in the book of Helaman, the narrator, presumably Mormon, paused in his account to reflect on the proclivity of the people to reject God in times of prosperity. As the result of a severe famine, the Nephites had, at the end of the 76th year of the judges, turned to God. Within a brief nine years, however, “they began again to forget the Lord their God. . . . They did wax stronger and stronger in their pride, and in their wickedness; and thus they were ripening again for destruction” (Helaman 11:36–37). Contemplating this sad turning away that had occurred in less than a decade’s time, Mormon lamented:

O how foolish, and how vain, and how evil, and devilish, and how quick to do iniquity, and how slow to do good, are the children of men; yea, how quick to hearken unto the words of the evil one, and to set their hearts upon the vain things of the world!

Yea, how quick to be lifted up in pride; yea, how quick to boast, and do all manner of that which is iniquity; and how slow are they to remember the Lord their God, and to give ear unto his counsels, yea, how slow to walk in wisdom’s paths!

Behold, they do not desire that the Lord their God, who hath created them, should rule and reign over them; notwithstanding his great goodness and his mercy towards them, they do set at naught his counsels, and they will not that he should be their guide. [Helaman 12:4–6]

We may each look at our own lives–at times when we have been slow to walk in wisdom’s paths, when we may have set at naught the Lord’s counsel and would not that He should be our guide. In hindsight it seems so irrational. Given His great goodness and mercy toward us, why should we not desire that He would rule and reign over us?

God’s Right to Rule in Our Lives

If we are honest, we must first acknowledge that God has every right to direct us. We are, after all, His creation. Jacob reminded us that “by the power of his word man came upon the face of the earth, which earth was created by the power of his word” (Jacob 4:9). Benjamin made the same point with impeccable logic:

And now, in the first place, he hath created you, and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him.

And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of what have ye to boast?

. . . Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth; . . . ye were created of the dust of the earth; but behold, it belongeth to him who created you. [Mosiah 2:23–25]

Beyond our being His creation, made up of materials that He owns, there is the even more important fact that, through His Son, He is the author of our salvation. Thus we are eternally indebted to Him not only for our mortal lives but also for our eternal lives. Paul said, “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:12). Joseph Smith testified, “That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God” (D&C 76:24)–or, in other words, born again into the kingdom of God. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has paid our ransom and satisfied justice. “He hath purchased [us] with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). In a very real sense, the Father and the Son can claim ownership of us.

Knowing these things, it is only with the most colossal arrogance that one could claim he owes no allegiance to God. There can be no argument, really. On what basis could we justify any resistance to His commandments? The case for disobedience simply does not exist.

The Blessings of Submission to God: Freedom

Even so, our submission to God is not simply a question of duty or obligation. The blessings that flow from welcoming God’s rule in our lives are so enticing, and the alternative so appalling, that if we see things in their true light, we cannot be kept from walking in wisdom’s paths. Among the greatest of the blessings that come from yielding to His will, though it seems ironic to some, is freedom. Let me explain.

First, we must recognize that there are only two options available to us, two paths. Alma put it this way:

Behold, I say unto you, that the good shepherd doth call you; yea, and in his own name he doth call you, which is the name of Christ; and if ye will not hearken unto the voice of the good shepherd, to the name by which ye are called, behold, ye are not the sheep of the good shepherd.

And now if ye are not the sheep of the good shepherd, of what fold are ye? Behold, I say unto you, that the devil is your shepherd, and ye are of his fold; and now, who can deny this? [Alma 5:38–39]

Other prophets have stated the same truth. Elijah said simply, “How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). I particularly appreciate Lehi’s statement:

Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself. [2 Nephi 2:27]

There is no third or neutral way. Our choice in this life is not whether we will or will not be subject to any power. We will be. Our choice is to which authority will we yield obedience: God’s or Satan’s? As Lehi stated, it is a choice between liberty and captivity. If it is not one, it is necessarily the other.

It is important that we understand this choice because not knowing the truth could lead us into serious error. As I noted at the outset, there is a philosophy abroad in the world that, in essence, places man in the role of supreme being. This philosophy argues that there is no higher law than one’s own preferences or feelings, one’s own desires and opinions. Each person becomes a law unto himself or herself and should not be subject to any other authority. By this reasoning, whatever one feels is right for him is necessarily right, and the rest of the universe must acknowledge and accept that judgment. In Korihor’s phrase, “whatsoever a man [does is] no crime” (Alma 30:17). No one can judge the right or wrong of another’s choices.

People are not yet willing to accept the end result of this sophistry that would, for example, preclude punishment of a man who commits murder if he felt it was right for him to do it. We still want to define some actions as crimes and prohibit them because of their effects on others. But society has already moved a significant distance down the road toward nonjudgmental acceptance of any and all behavior. Adultery is no longer considered a crime in many jurisdictions despite its devastating impact on others, especially innocent parties. It is preached that such conduct is a personal choice, and the participants decide whether it is right or wrong for them. I have read of students who in their own minds cannot condemn the Nazi Holocaust because to do so would be imposing their values on others–something strictly forbidden by this code of moral relativism. Presumably such persons would not oppose any future genocide. The philosophy that makes each man or woman his or her own lawgiver clearly leads to a lawless and dismal end.

The Lord has said:

That which breaketh a law, and abideth not by law, but seeketh to become a law unto itself, and willeth to abide in sin, and altogether abideth in sin, cannot be sanctified by law, neither by mercy, justice, nor judgment. Therefore, they must remain filthy still. [D&C 88:35]

License is not liberty. Self-absorption and self-indulgence are not freedom. It is yielding to the discipline of God’s will and His love that brings true freedom–the freedom to excel, to create, to bless. The gospel, said President Gordon B. Hinckley, “is a plan of freedom that gives discipline to appetite and direction to behavior” (Gordon B. Hinckley, “A Principle with Promise,” Improvement Era, June 1965, 521). This path is one of increasing knowledge and capacity, increasing grace and light. It is the freedom to become what you can and ought to be. But for your freedom to be complete, you must be willing to give away all your sins (see Alma 22:18), your willfulness, your cherished but unsound habits, perhaps even some good things that interfere with what God sees is essential for you.

My aunt, Adena Nell Gourley, told of an experience from many years ago with her father–my grandfather, Helge V. Swenson, now deceased–that illustrates what I mean. She related:

Last week my daughter and I were visiting in my parents’ home. Along about sundown my mother asked if we would like to step out on the back porch and watch Father call his sheep to come into the shelter for the night. Father . . . is a stake patriarch, and you’ll understand and forgive me when I say he is the personification of all that is good and gentle and true in a man of God.

About a block and a half away from the edge of the back lawn, five . . . sheep were quietly grazing on the stubble of last summer’s wheat field. Father walked to the edge of the field and called, “Come on.” Immediately, without even stopping to bite off the mouthful of food they were reaching for, all five heads turned in his direction, and then they broke into a run until they had reached his side and received his pat on each head.

My little daughter said, “Oh, Grandmother, how did Grandfather get them to do that?”

My mother answered, “The sheep know his voice, and they love him.” Now I must confess that there were five sheep in the field, and five heads went up when he called, but only four ran to Father. Farthest away, clear over on the edge of the field, looking straight toward Father, stood [a] large [ewe]. Father called to her, “Come on.” She made a motion as if to start but didn’t come. Then Father started across the field calling to her, “Come on. You’re untied.” The other four sheep trailed behind him at his heels. Then Mother explained to us that some few weeks before this, an acquaintance of theirs had brought the [ewe] and had given it to Father with the explanation that he no longer wanted it in his own herd. The man had said it was wild and wayward and was always leading his other sheep through the fences and causing so much trouble that he wanted to get rid of it. Father gladly accepted the sheep, and for the next few days he staked it in the field so it wouldn’t go away. Then he patiently taught it to love him and the other sheep. Then, as it felt more secure in its new home, Father left a short rope around its neck but didn’t stake it down.

As Mother explained this to us, Father and his sheep had almost reached the [straggler] at the edge of the field, and through the stillness we heard him call again, “Come on. You aren’t tied down any more. You are free.”

I felt the tears sting my eyes as I saw [the sheep] give a lurch and reach Father’s side. Then, with his loving hand on her head, he and all the members of his little flock turned and walked back toward us again.

I thought how some of us, who are all God’s sheep, are bound and unfree because of our sins in the world. Standing there on the back porch, I silently thanked my Heavenly Father that there are true under-shepherds and teachers who are patient and kind and willingly teach us of love and obedience and offer us security and freedom within the flock so that, though we may be far from the shelter, we’ll recognize the Master’s voice when He calls, “Come on. Now you’re free.” [Adena Nell Swenson Gourley, I Walked a Flowered Path (unpublished manuscript, 1995), 199–200]

It is exciting to realize that we can expand our freedom by perfecting our obedience. In President Boyd K. Packer’s words, “We are not obedient because we are blind, we are obedient because we can see” (Boyd K. Packer, CR, April 1983, 90; or “Agency and Control,” Ensign, May 1983, 66).

The Blessings of Submission to God: Peace

Our yielding to God and his right to rule and reign over us brings other blessings. Among the foremost are the faith and confidence that permit us to live with peace. The Lord said to Joshua:

There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. . . .

Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. [Joshua 1:5, 7]

If we likewise “observe to do according to all the law,” we shall also have the confidence of God being with us as He was with Moses. With the Psalmist we will be able to say, “In God I have put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me” (Psalm 56:11). Has not the Lord promised, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33)?

Years ago I presided in a Church disciplinary council. The man whose sins were the subject of the council sat before us and related something of his history. His sins were indeed serious, but he had also been terribly sinned against. As we considered the matter, my soul was troubled, and I asked to be excused to think and pray about it alone before rejoining the council.

I was standing in front of a chair in my office pleading with the Lord to help me understand how such evil could have been perpetrated. I did not see but rather sensed an immense pit with a covering over it. One corner of the covering was lifted slightly for just an instant, and I perceived within it the depth and vastness of the evil that exists in this world. It was greater than I could really comprehend. I was overcome. I collapsed into the chair behind me. It seemed to take my breath away. I cried silently, “How can we ever hope to overcome such evil? How can we survive something so dark and overwhelming?”

In that moment there came to my mind this phrase: “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Seldom have I felt such peace juxtaposed to the reality of evil. I felt a deeper appreciation for the intensity of the Savior’s suffering, having a better, even frightening appreciation for the depth of what He had to overcome. I felt peace for the man who was before us for judgment, knowing he had a Redeemer whose grace was sufficient to cleanse him and also repair the injustices he had suffered. I knew better that good will triumph because of Jesus Christ, whereas without Him we would have no chance. I felt peace, and it was very sweet.

Joseph Smith understood this when he said, “Let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed” (D&C 123:17). The promise to those who submit to God is that His arm, His power, will be revealed in their lives. Jesus said:

Fear not, little children, for you are mine, and I have overcome the world, and you are of them that my Father hath given me;

And none of them that my Father hath given me shall be lost. [D&C 50:41–42]

To live with this assurance is a blessing perhaps greater than you can today appreciate. Most of you have not yet lived long enough to know how precious peace is. Others, despite your youth, may have experienced feelings of desperation. But all of us, soon or late, in a moment of looming disaster or wearying confusion, having chosen God as our guide, will be able to sing with conviction, “Sweet is the peace the gospel brings” (Hymns, 1985, no. 14).

President Gordon B. Hinckley is often heard to say words to the effect, “Things will work out” and “The Lord controls in the affairs of the Church and in the world.” In 1983 he found himself at the pulpit of the Tabernacle in April general conference, the only member of the First Presidency able to be present. President Spencer W. Kimball and President Marion G. Romney were suffering from incapacitating illnesses. I suppose President Hinckley felt somewhat alone with a weight of responsibility that few can comprehend. He recounted:

Recently while wrestling in my mind with a problem I thought to be of serious consequence I went to my knees in prayer. There came into my mind a feeling of peace and the words of the Lord, “Be still and know that I am God.” I turned to the scripture and read this reassuring statement spoken to the Prophet Joseph Smith 150 years ago: “Let your hearts be comforted concerning Zion; for all flesh is in mine hands; be still and know that I am God” (D&C 101:16).

God is weaving his tapestry according to his own grand design. All flesh is in his hands. It is not our prerogative to counsel him. It is our responsibility and our opportunity to be at peace in our minds and in our hearts, and to know that he is God, that this is his work, and that he will not permit it to fail. [Gordon B. Hinckley, CR, April 1983, 4–5; or "He Slumbers Not, nor Sleeps," Ensign, May 1983, 6]

Those who accept God’s supremacy and act accordingly can count on His support. His power, His love, and His mercy all insure that He can and will sustain them. Those who reject God’s rule do not have access to this precious peace. “There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked” (Isaiah 48:22). Reflecting on Korihor’s end, for example, “we see that the devil will not support his children at the last day, but doth speedily drag them down to hell” (Alma 30:60). With no promises, other than what may come from the father of lies, those who have not taken God as their guide are plagued by insecurities, looking fearfully over their shoulders at real and imagined threats to their safety and happiness. As noted in Proverbs, “The wicked flee when no man pursueth” (Proverbs 28:1).

Submission to God Must Be Voluntary and Wholehearted

Although it is God’s right to rule and reign over us, it is a right that generally He does not enforce. It is a true principle that He accepts only voluntary obedience, only that which is unforced. Moroni observed:

For behold, God hath said a man being evil cannot do that which is good; for if he offereth a gift, or prayeth unto God, except he shall do it with real intent it profiteth him nothing. . . .

For behold, if a man being evil giveth a gift, he doeth it grudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift. . . .

And likewise also is it counted evil unto a man, if he shall pray and not with real intent of heart; yea, and it profiteth him nothing, for God receiveth none such. [Moroni 7:6, 8–9]

We should not expect freedom or faith or peace or any other such gift from our divine head if our acceptance of His leadership is lukewarm or grudging. If it is ritual rather than real righteousness, we should not expect a reward. A detached, aloof allegiance is for Him no allegiance at all. Our submission must be full, wholehearted, and unstinting. “See that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day” (D&C 4:2).

You will recall Benjamin’s statement that one must become “as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father” (Mosiah 3:19). What God requires is the devotion portrayed by Jesus, who was asked to drink a cup so bitter it amazed even Him, the great Creator (see Mark 14:33). Yet He did it, “the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father” (Mosiah 15:7).

For God truly to reign, the first commandment–to love Him with all our heart, might, mind, and strength (see Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30)–must be first in our lives. President Ezra Taft Benson said:

When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we pursue, and the order of our priorities. [Ezra Taft Benson, CR, April 1988, 3; or "The Great Commandment--Love the Lord," Ensign, May 1988, 4]

This is not for the fainthearted or unstable. Our submission to His will can require some wrenching sacrifices. The Lord himself observed, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). We do not know what may come. We must be able to say with Joseph Smith, “Whatever God requires is right” (Joseph Smith, Teachings, 256), and with the Savior, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29).

There are some significant words added to a verse in Luke in Joseph Smith’s inspired version. Luke, chapter 14, verse 27 reads: “And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” The added words are: “Wherefore, settle this in your hearts, that ye will do the things which I shall teach, and command you” (JST, Luke 14:28). That is my plea to you. Settle it now in your heart that you will have God to rule and reign over you, that you will walk in wisdom’s paths. Make the choice once and for all. Hold nothing back. “Offer your whole souls as an offering unto him” (Omni 1:26).

Don’t resist or resent God’s guidance; rejoice in it. Rejoice that He knows you and is willing to guide you. Rejoice that He binds Himself to bless you when you follow Him (see D&C 82:10). In an address here some years ago, President Boyd K. Packer related:

As I meet young people around the Church, they are always saying, “When will my parents ever think I have enough maturity to act for myself?” I know when with my family . . . I know that they are ready for full freedom in any field of endeavor the very minute they stop resenting supervision. At that moment I can back off, let them go alone, and really just be there to respond if they come for help. . . .

. . . We should put ourselves in a position before our Father in Heaven and say, individually, “I do not want to do what I want to do. I want to do what Thou wouldst have me do.” Suddenly, like any father, the Lord could say, “Well, there is one more of my children almost free from the need of constant supervision.” [Boyd K. Packer, "Obedience," in "That All May Be Edified" (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982), 254, 257]

I can tell you what will happen to you. In yielding your will to His, God will tutor you in the successful use of moral agency. You will find freedom to be, to feel, and to do. You will be supported in all your trials. You will “bring forth as a very fruitful tree which is planted in a goodly land, by a pure stream, that yieldeth much precious fruit” (D&C 97:9). Over time your prayers will become powerful, and you will come into God’s presence, through prayer, with confidence. Because of your unwearyingness in seeking the Lord’s will rather than your own, He may promise you as He did Helaman’s son, Nephi, “even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will” (Helaman 10:5). Your life, your personality will take on the characteristics and qualities of Christ. As B. H. Roberts observed:

The man who so walks in the light and wisdom and power of God, will at the last, by the very force of association, make the light and wisdom and power of God his own–weaving those bright rays into a chain divine, linking himself forever to God and God to him. This [is] the sum of Messiah’s mystic words, “Thou Father in me, and I in thee”–beyond this human greatness cannot achieve. [B. H. Roberts, "Brigham Young: A Character Study," Improvement Era, June 1903, 574]

I leave you my witness that through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we may become one with God, just as He prayed that we might be (see John 17:20–23). May your reverence for these holy beings and your allegiance to them be the shining guide of your life forever, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

This nation is distinctive among the nations of mankind. It is not just one among the families of nations, but it has a unique origin, purpose, and destiny. The foundation of this nation is spiritual. It was founded on belief in the sovereignty of God and that he—not government—granted man his rights. Furthermore, the Founding Fathers gave deliberate acknowledgment that the hand of God was in the events that brought about our independence. Here are a few of their testimonies:

George Washington: “The success, which has hitherto attended our united efforts, we owe to the gracious interposition of Heaven, and to that interposition let us gratefully ascribe the praise of victory, and the blessings of peace.” (To the Executive of New Hampshire, November 3, 1789.)

Alexander Hamilton: “The Sacred Rights of mankind are not to be rummaged from among old parchments or musty records. They are written . . . by the Hand of Divinity itself.” (“The Farmer Refuted,” 1775.)

Thomas Jefferson: “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.” (Rights of British America, 1774.)

John Quincy Adams: “From the day of the Declaration . . . [the American people] were bound by the laws of God . . . and by the laws of the Gospel, which they nearly all acknowledged as the rules of their conduct.” (Oration celebrating July 4, 1821.)

It was not just incidental nor was it mere political platitude that the name of God was mentioned in the Declaration of Independence four times, and that our adopted national motto became “In God We Trust.” From the life of our illustrious founder, George Washington, we have an example of rectitude worthy of emulation by all public servants, an example that demonstrates a consistency between his private morality and public behavior. In light of past and present indiscretions by public officials, it would seem that this is a lesson that needs to be relearned.

It is evident from the vantage point of two hundred years that this country today enjoys an unparalleled freedom and prosperity. The facts speak for themselves.

Few nations possess the freedoms we do: freedom to speak, freedom to own property and business, freedom to worship, freedom to print, freedom to travel at home and abroad, freedom to censure even public officials, and freedom of private enterprise. No other country has been more richly blessed or more generous in terms of money and food.

Of those who malign our country or system, we ask, by what source did we receive such blessings and prosperity?

The source of all these blessings is God, because to a great extent we have been a God-fearing, Christ-worshiping people. Yet it should be evident to all who survey the social, political, and domestic landscape before us today, that we have departed from the ways of our forefathers and the path they marked out for us. In recent years we have witnessed a corrosion of the constitutional government established by our forebears, and a departure from the laws of God. No longer may it be said that we have a nation united under God. In Abraham Lincoln’s words, “We have forgotten God.”

There are some in this land, among whom I count myself, whose faith it is that America is “a land choice above all other lands” to the Lord, and that we shall remain on this land only as we remain in God’s divine favor.

There are principles that may bring us back into heaven’s favor again. These principles are embodied in the Decalogue, or the Ten Commandments. They came from God Himself to Moses, and form the foundation of civilized society. Designed by the Almighty, these laws plumb the depths of human motives and urges, and, if adhered to, will regulate the baser passions of mankind. No nation has ever perished that has kept the commandments of God.

Neither permanent government nor civilization will long endure that violates these laws. The conscience of all right-thinking people declares this to be so. “America cannot remain strong by ignoring the commandments of the Lord.” (President Spencer W. Kimball, June 3, 1976.)

Again, our vantage point today, two hundred years after the birth of this favored nation, yields to us a foresight to see that if we as a nation are to long remain under heaven’s benign protection and care, we should return to those principles that have brought us peace, liberty, and prosperity. Our problems today are essentially problems of the spirit. The solution is not more wealth, more food, more technology, more government, or instruments of destruction. The solution is personal and national reformation. In short, it is to bring our national character ahead of our technological and material advances. Repentance is the sovereign remedy to our problems.

This nation is God-ordained for a glorious purpose. It is an ensign of liberty to all other nations. This liberty will be maintained as we keep the commandments of God. Righteousness is the indispensable ingredient to liberty.

I have seen the unquenchable yearning of the human heart for liberty on two unforgettable occasions. These experiences are indelibly etched on the memory of my soul.

I saw this yearning spirit in the faces of many European people, in the aftermath of World War II. It fell my lot, under the direction of the president of the Church, to be among the first to go into war-torn European countries and distribute food, clothing, and bedding to the suffering members of our church. I saw firsthand entire nations prostrate, flat on their backs economically. I looked into the face of hunger—the pale, the thin, the many dressed in rags, and some barefoot. I saw the refugees, the poor unwanted souls who were driven from their homes to destinations unknown. They came with all their possessions on their backs. I visited some of their homes—shacks—where as many as twenty-two people were living in one room. I saw men enslaved by habit barter their food and clothing for a cigarette. I saw some who were fortunate to get hold of an American magazine and pore over its pages and wonder if what they saw could possibly be true. I saw the struggles on every hand to get to America—some legal and others illegal—all in an effort to enjoy freedom and liberty. These were a people who had once known freedom, but had let it slip away.

The second unforgettable experience was when I was in Russia in 1959. We had been touring seven European countries as a part of the objective of the government of the United States to develop world markets and create good will.

Mr. Khrushchev had promised me that I would be able to visit a Christian church in Russia. During our stay there, the guides did everything possible to prevent this. On the way to the airport, before leaving Moscow, I insisted that we go to a Baptist Church in Moscow. It was only a few minutes out of the way. Reluctantly, we were taken to the church. Our guides had told us that the churches were empty, that no one attended church any more, and that religion is the “opiate of the people.”

When we arrived at that Baptist Church, we found it full to overflowing. I looked into the faces of the people. Many were middle-aged and older, but a surprising number were young. As we were being ushered to pews, which had been vacated for our unexpected visit, people reached out and grasped for our hands to touch us, “almost,” in the words of one newsman, “as one would reach out for the last final caress of one’s most beloved just before the casket is lowered.” They were in misery and yet a light shone through the misery. They gripped our hands like frightened children.

Later in the service I was asked to address the congregation. I spoke to them about God and Jesus Christ, His Son. I encouraged them to be unafraid and to pray for peace. I witnessed to them the reality of the resurrection and that this life is only a part of eternity. Then, in closing, I told them that truth would endure and that time was on the side of truth.

I don’t recall all I said, but I recall being lifted up and inspired by their rapt faces. When I sat down, the whole congregation broke into a favorite hymn of my childhood, “God Be with You Till We Meet Again.” We walked down the aisle and they waved their handkerchiefs in farewell—it seemed all 1500 were waving. When we finally left, the young lady Russian guide whispered to my wife, “I’m a Christian, too.”

It has been my privilege to speak before many church bodies in all parts of the world, but the impact of that experience is almost indescribable. I shall never forget that evening as long as I live.

Seldom, if ever, have I felt the oneness of mankind and the unquenchable yearning of the human heart for freedom so keenly as at that moment. One correspondent described the experience in these words: “The Communist plan is that when these ‘last believers’ die off, religion will die with them. What the atheists don’t know is that God can’t be stamped out either by legislated atheism or firing squad. This Methodist back-slider who occasionally grumbles about having to go to church, stood crying unashamedly, throat lumped, and chills running from spine to toes. It was the most heart-rending and most inspiring scene I’ve ever witnessed. With heavy hearts we left to rejoin the smug, smart-aleck atheist guides who took us to the church but refused to go in.” (Tom Anderson, Farm and Ranch Magazine.)

Never will I forget this victory of spirit over tyranny, oppression, and ignorance. Never can I doubt the ultimate deliverance of the Russian people.

Freedom from aggression is a justifiable concern. As historians have pointed out, however, great nations do not usually fall by external aggression; they first erode and decay inwardly, so that, like rotten fruit, they fall of themselves.

The history of nations shows that the cycle of the body politic slowly but surely undergoes change. It progresses—

—From bondage to spiritual faith—From spiritual faith to courage—From courage to freedom—From freedom to abundance—From abundance to selfishness—From selfishness to complacency—From complacency to apathy—From apathy to fear—From fear to dependency—From dependency to bondage.

The greatest threat to the freedom of any nation is erosion—not erosion of the soil, but erosion of the national morality and character. What we have to fear is not force from without, but weakness from within.

Every nation yearns for liberty, but too frequently its own self-indulgence precludes the possibility of freedom. I speak of the trend of pleasure without conscience, wealth without work, business without morality, politics without principle, and worship without sacrifice. I believe personally there is a strong relationship between a strong, prosperous nation and the faith and righteousness of its people.

There are indispensable conditions that must be met if a nation is to preserve freedom and prevent its own downfall. May I cite four of these conditions—pillars upon which a nation’s security rests.

1. A faith in God and in the universal brotherhood of all mankind.

I believe with all my heart the words of the American patriot Patrick Henry, who, on the eve of the American Revolution, said, “There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us.” Further, it is part of my faith that no people can maintain freedom unless their political institutions are founded on faith in God and belief in the existence of moral law. God has endowed men with certain inalienable rights, and no government may morally limit or destroy these.

The Founding Fathers of the United States seemed to have a clear realization that, to survive, the new nation would need a reliance on the protection of God for their survival In the Declaration of Independence there is an appeal to the “Supreme Judge of the world” and to “the laws of nature and nature’s God.” The document concludes with this affirmation: “And for support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor.”

Here we see that the principle of supremacy of the individual over government is rooted in religious precept. The corollary to this recognition and reliance upon God is the belief in the worth of the individual. The two precepts go hand in hand. The truth is very evident and simple. There is a God in heaven who is the sovereign power of the universe, and we are His literal offspring. He has endowed us with inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This He has implanted in the human breast. This is why men cannot be driven indefinitely or led by despotic rulers to intellectual or physical slavery and bondage. Fear and despotism may rule for a generation or two, or three, but in time the human spirit rebels, the spirit of liberty manifests itself, and its tyrannous hand is overthrown. Yes, as the offspring of God, we share a common paternity that makes us literally brothers, and thus a common destiny. When this truth sinks into the human heart, men demand their rights—life, liberty, and happiness. It is as the apostle Paul told the Corinthians, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (2 Corinthians 3:17.)

I believe this spirit of liberty is beginning to manifest itself in Soviet Russia today, as evidenced by the testimonial of the Nobel Prize recipient, Alexander Solzhenitsyn:

“We dissidents in the U.S.S.R. don’t have any tanks, we don’t have any weapons, we have no organization. We don’t have anything. Our hands are empty; we have only a heart and what we have lived through in the last half century under this system. When we have found the firmness within ourselves to stand up for our rights, we have done so. It’s only by our firmness of spirit that we have withstood, and I’m standing here before you, not because of the kindness or the good will of Communism, not thanks to detente, but thanks to my own firmness and your firm support.

“The Communists knew that I would not give up one inch, not one hair, and when they couldn’t do more, they themselves fell back. This was taught to me by the difficulties of my own life.” (U.S. News and World Report, July 14, 1975, p. 49.)

In the meantime, we must not forget the source of all our blessings—our prosperity, our wealth, our comforts, our freedom. We must not forget that it is by God’s gracious hand that these blessings are preserved, and not by our own superior wisdom. May we keep alive our faith in God by worshiping Him and keeping His commandments.

2. Strong homes and family ties.

The home is the rock foundation, the cornerstone of civilization. No nation will rise above its homes, and no nation will long endure when the family unit is weakened or destroyed. I need not remind you of the great threat to the family in all nations of the world today. Divorce is epidemic. The father’s place at the head of the home is being challenged, and mothers have, in many instances, left the hearth to join the work force, thus weakening the stability of the home. Children, not growing up with strong parental guidance and spiritual influence, are allowed to roam freely. Not only does this lack of training and permissiveness sponsor indolence, but many of these youth, out of boredom, have also turned to drugs, juvenile delinquency, or crime.

3. A political climate and governmental system that protects man’s inalienable rights.

Every governmental system has a sovereign, one or several who possess all the executive, legislative, and judicial powers. That sovereign may be an individual, a group, or the people themselves. Broadly speaking, there are only two governmental systems in the world today. One system recognizes that the sovereign power is vested in the head of state (a monarchy or dictatorship) or a group of men (an oligarchy). This system is as old as history and rests on the premise that the ruler grants to the people the rights and powers he thinks they should have. It is the basis of Roman or civil law, and all dictatorships of history. The system is wrong regardless of how benevolent the dictator may be, because it denies that which belongs to all men inalienably—their right to life, property, and liberty. Since all men are brothers, it follows that “it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another.” (D&C 101:79.)

The other system is that which had its historic origin in 1776, the year of the American independence. The Founding Fathers were men who understood the tyranny that can come out of the system of civil law. They had been indoctrinated in a different system of thought, that of common law, which is premised on the idea that true sovereignty rests with the people. Believing this to be in accord with truth, they inserted this imperative in the Declaration of Independence: “That to secure these Rights [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.”

Later, when the young nation had won her independence through the Revolutionary War, a free peoples’ representative drafted a second document, the Constitution of the United States, which opens with this Preamble:

“We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Here the people were speaking. They recognized their sovereignty, not that of a king, emperor, or oligarchy. All rights and powers not granted specifically to the government were retained by themselves. This is the difference between freedom and despotism!

There are only two possible sources of man’s rights. Rights are either God-given as part of the divine plan or they are granted by government as part of the political plan. Reason, necessity, tradition, and religious convictions all lead me to accept the divine origin of these rights. If we accept the premise that human rights are granted by government, then we must be willing to accept the corollary that they can be denied by government. I, for one, shall never accept that premise. As the French political economist, Frederick Bastiat, phrased it so succinctly, “Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.” (The Law, 1850, p. 6.)

Since God created man with certain inalienable rights, and man, in turn, created government to help secure and safeguard those rights, it follows that man is superior to government and should remain master over it, not the other way around. Even the nonbeliever can appreciate the logic of this relationship. It just isn’t good for government to do for people what they can and should do for themselves. Any country that pursues policies that cause the self-reliance, initiative, and freedom of its people to slowly drain away is a country in danger. Let it be remembered that as government leaders our primary task is to protect the freedom of the people.

4. Elected government officials who are wise and good, and a vigilant, informed citizenry.

You will note that I have qualified what, to me, should epitomize those fit to lead. They must be both good and wise. Some men are good, but too naive to be wise statesmen. Other men possess great intellect, but are not morally good. A nation, to endure, must have leaders at the helm whose mandate is higher than the ballot box.

If a government is really the sum of its people, and they are sovereign, then it follows that they must be watchful, vigilant, and informed lest their liberties become gradually usurped by naive or unscrupulous leaders and they awaken to find their liberty gone. Despotism does not arise on the platform of totalitarianism or anything resembling it. It is voted into office on platitudes of “democracy,” “freedom,” promises of what the government will provide the people, or “something for nothing.” In reality, government should do nothing economically for a people that they can do for themselves. To pursue policies to the contrary weakens national initiative and destroys character, and politicians who prey on the gullibilities of the electorate to stay in public office are unworthy of the trust given to them.

We must keep the people informed that collectivism, another word for socialism, is a part of the communist strategy. Communism is essentially socialism. Alexis de Tocqueville, with unusual insight, was able to foresee and predict the spiritual deterioration that would occur if the people forfeited their rights to a paternalistic welfare state:

“After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrial animals, of which government is the shepherd.” (Democracy in America, New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House, 2:338.)

Wise leaders ought to have, then, as one of their major objectives, the education of citizens to the truth. “Enlighten the people generally,” said Thomas Jefferson, “and tyranny and oppression will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.” (Works, 6:592.)

These, then, are the pillars upon which any nation’s national security rests:

1. Faith in God and in the universal brotherhood of all mankind.
2. Strong homes and family ties.
3. A political climate and governmental system that protects man’s inalienable rights.
4. Elected government officials who are wise and good, and a vigilant, informed citizenry.

Today we are in a worldwide battle, the first of its kind in history between two opposing systems, freedom and slavery; between the spirit of Christianity and the spirit of the antichrist for the bodies and souls of men. May God grant that we will win the battle by alertness, by determination, by courage, and by an energizing realization of the danger.

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Are we willing to pay the price? The days ahead are sobering and challenging and will demand the faith, prayers, and loyalty of all men to the truth. As the ancient apostle declared: “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.” (Romans 13:12.)

May God give us the wisdom to recognize the danger of complacency, the threat to our freedom, and the strength to meet this danger courageously.

Here are just a few quotes:

I think the time is not far distant when the light that shines from the lives of the faithful Latter-day Saints will draw many of the honest in heart into the straight and narrow path. This is the gospel of liberty, restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith. (Elder German E. Ellsworth. CR April 1907.)

The gospel that we have received is a gospel of liberty but not of license. There is nobody in bondage in this church. We are at perfect liberty to do that which we desire to do, so far as we have power. But we are not permitted, if we are saints of the living God, to go into corruption and wickedness and into the evils of this world. True, we have the power, but the Lord has given us commandments concerning these things, and He expects us to be a righteous people. (Elder Charles W. Penrose CR October 1904.)

We are all searching for happiness; we hope for it, we think we live for it, it is our aim in this life. But do we live so as to enjoy the happiness we so much desire? There is only one way for Latter-day Saints to be happy, which is simply to live their religion, or in other words believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ in every part, obeying the gospel of liberty with full purpose of heart, which sets us free indeed. (Brigham Young. 12:168. Discourses of Brigham Young.)

Ever since the beginning of human existence on earth, the deposed son of the morning and his followers have been compassing the captivity of souls. The plan of salvation is the gospel of liberty. And now, in these the last days, immediately precedent to the return of Christ, who shall come to rule in righteousness on earth, the arch-fiend is making desperate effort to enthrall mankind under the autocracy of hell. The conflict under which the earth has been made to groan was a repetition of the premundane war, whereby the free agency of spirits was vindicated; and the eventual issue of the later struggle was equally assured. ( Vitality of Mormonism. James E. Talmage)

‘Mormonism’ is the Gospel of liberty, for it opens the door of freedom, and throws off the fetters of bondage. I bear my testimony to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed by the Prophet Joseph Smith, and to the correctness of the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; also to the revelations given through the prophets of God both ancient and modern. (Elder Ezra Taft Benson. Member of the Council of Twelve from July 16, 1846, to September 3, 1869. Testimonies of the Divinity of the Church 1830 – 1930 (S. Bennion))

Liberty’s Perfect Law

The Gospel of Christ is the Perfect Law of Liberty. So says James the Apostle. But liberty does not mean license, nor does the Gospel stand for antiquated tradition or for present-day speculation, religious or irreligious. It embraces all truth, whether in science, philosophy, art, or any other department of knowledge. God himself is its Author, its Fountainhead, and divine revelation is the channel through which it flows.

Purpose of the Gospel

The Gospel is a great system of laws, a code of eternal principles, whereby the omnipotent and all-wise Creator, our Father in Heaven, proposes to lift fallen mankind, his sons and daughters, and not only save them, but exalt them to his glorious presence, and so far as they prove worthy and capable, share with them the empire of the universe.

No Tyranny

Freedom is the Gospel’s sign manual. Tyranny has no place therein. There is no room in all the Government of God for the exercise of unrighteous dominion.

Eternity’s Constitution

The God we worship is no respecter of persons, but He is a respecter of men’s rights, and a guardian of them – a fact clearly shown in the heaven-inspired Constitution of our country, and in the Gospel itself, which might be termed the Constitution of Eternity.

A Fundamental Principle

Man’s free agency, his right to worship as his conscience dictates, and to act in all things willingly and without compulsion – a principle handed down from the eternal past, where Lucifer was overthrown for seeking to destroy it – is an integral part of Liberty’s Perfect Law. As such it found expression, a concrete illustration, and that by direct, divine command, when this Church was organized, one hundred years ago.

The Consent of the Governed

“Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” So says the Declaration of American Independence, and so says, in effect, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of common consent has been practiced in this Church from the beginning, and is shown forth in all the conferences and other important gatherings of the Lord’s people. They are clearly within their rights when they vote for or against the officers nominated to preside over them, and when they approve or disapprove of any proposed measure vitally affecting their spiritual and temporal welfare.

Joseph and Oliver

The men who organized this Church, or who were most conspicuous in its organization, were Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. Joseph had looked upon the face of God; had gazed upon the Father and the Son; had received from them instructions concerning the then existing churches, from which he was commanded to hold himself aloof, and await the coming of the true Church, which was about to reappear, and in the establishment of which he was to be the chief human instrument. Oliver had been with Joseph in the work of translating the Book of Mormon, assisting him as copyist or scribe. He had shared with the Prophet the honor of receiving the restored priesthoods-the Aaronic and the Melchizedek; the former under the hands of John the Baptist, the latter by the subsequent personal ministration of the Apostles, Peter, James and John. The foremost of these heavenly messengers, John the Baptist, had told Joseph and Oliver that they were to be, respectively, the First and Second Elders of the Church; and had directed themto baptize each other as a preliminary to other important proceedings soon to follow.

In the first, second and third chapters of the History of the Church, Volume One-Joseph Smith’s autobiography-the Prophet tells his own story of these wonderful events; and they are also recorded in a more recently published Church History-the splendid product of the able pen of President B. H. Roberts.

An American Church

Speaking of the word of the Lord that came to him and his co-laborer in the farmhouse of Peter Whitmer, St., at Fayette, Seneca County, N. Y., a word directing them to ordain each other to the office of Elder, the Prophet says:

“We were, however, commanded to defer this our ordination until such time as it should be practicable to have our brethren, who had been and who should be baptized, assembled together, when we must have their sanction to our thus proceeding to ordain each other, and have them decide by vote whether they were willing to accept us as spiritual teachers, or not.”

An American Church, truly, manifesting at the very hour of its birth the sublime democratic doctrine: “Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” And truly did Joseph Smith, God’s prophet, show himself a real and true American when, at a later period, in answer to a question put to him, as to how he managed to govern a community made up of so many different nationalities, with all their varied languages, customs and traditions, he replied: “I teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves.”

God and the People

Let it not be supposed, however, that this recognition of “government of the people, by the people, for the people”-as Lincoln expressed it-shuts God out of the question. It may do so in the mind of a godless politician, or a pseudo, make-believe Christian, but not in the mind of a true Latter-day Saint or a Christian of genuine stamp. The United States is a republic, in which the people are looked upon as the one source of political power. The Church of Christ is a theo- democracy, in which God speaks and the people say amen! It is the Church of God and his people, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Obedient to the divine mandate spoken to them in Father Whitmer’s humble home, Joseph and Oliver took steps to ascertain whether or not their brethren would sanction their ordination as Elders of the Church and were willing to come under their spiritual tutelage.

Not Yet Qualified

What!-exclaims one. After these men had communed with heavenly beings and received from them commandments for their guidance; after receiving divine authority to preach the Gospel, administer its ordinances, and establish once more on earth the long absent Church of Christ! After all this must they go before the people and ask their consent to organize them and preside over them as a religious body? Yes, that was precisely the situation. Notwithstanding all those glorious manifestations, they were not yet fully qualified to hold the high positions unto which they had been divinely called. One element was lacking-the consent of the people. Until that consent was given, there could be no church with these people as its members and those men as its presiding authorities. The Great Ruler of all never did and never will foist upon any of his people, in branch, ward, stake or Church capacity, a presiding officer whom they are not willing to accept and uphold.

Happily for all concerned, the brethren associated with Joseph and Oliver on that memorable sixth of April of the year 1830, did sanction their ordination, did “decide by vote” to accept them as their “spiritual teachers.”

God the Giver

But suppose it had been otherwise. Suppose the brethren in question had not been willing to accept the men whom the Lord had chosen, but had lifted their hands against instead of for them. What would have been the result? Would such action have taken from Joseph and Oliver their Priesthood or their gifts and powers as seers, prophets and revelators of the Most High? No. Any more than it would have blotted out the fact that Joseph had seen God, and that he and Oliver had communed with angels sent from Heaven to ordain them. Their brethren had not given them the Priesthood, had not made them prophets and seers, and they would have remained such regardless of any adverse action on the part of their associates. The Gospel, the Priesthood, the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven are not within the gift of the membership of the Church. They are bestowed by the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ, in person or by proxy, and without his consent no power on earth or under the earth could take them away.

What Might Have Resulted

But if the vote had been unfavorable, this would have resulted: The brethren and sisters who were waiting to be admitted into the Church would have closed the door in their own faces, would have cut themselves off from a most precious privilege, would have deprived themselves of the inestimable benefits flowing from the exercise of the gifts and powers possessed by the men divinely commissioned to inaugurate this great Latter-day Work; and they could have gone elsewhere, and, under divine direction, have organized the Church of Christ among any people worthy to constitute its membership and willing that these men should be their leaders. But the vote was in their favor, thank the Lord! and we who are here today are among the beneficiaries of that act of faith and humility.

A Divine Necessity

Never, since this Church was organized, has it been without a divinely inspired Priesthood, with seers, prophets and revelators at its head; and it never will be without them. They are a divine necessity. Wanting such guides, such pilots, inspired from above, we would be floundering in the same troubled sea of doubt and uncertainty respecting religion, its sacred obligations and its vital problems, as are the peoples of the world around us. Without the gift of the Holy Ghost, to interpret the Scriptures and make manifest the things of God, we also would be putting our own private interpretations upon the revelations of divine truth, and be lost and wandering, as others are, in a maze of superstition and error.

Longing for Light

The churches of men are built upon books and traditions, handed down from the dubious past-what God said to other peoples in other times, under circumstances vastly different from our own. And mixed with these things are other things that God is said to have said-but never did say-and they are palmed upon the world as utterances of divine authority. In many lands God’s children, millions of them, are yearning and longing for the Light, hungering and thirsting for pure Gospel truth, which they find not in man-made religions and philosophies; and blind leaders of the blind, turning their backs upon New Revelation, are endeavoring to feed a spiritually starving world with the mutilated menu card of a banquet ages old.

Power of the Priesthood

No book, however good; no tradition, however venerable, is a sufficient guide for a progressive people on their way to the Celestial Kingdom. We have something better than books-far better than the best of them. We have divine authority, which constitutes the men holding it agents and representatives of the Almighty; and whatsoever they do by virtue of that authority, and under the inspiration of the spirit of their holy calling, is just as valid and binding and just as acceptable to God, as though he were present in person saying and doing what his servants say and do for him. That is what it means to bear the Priesthood.

The Pure Faith

We have the pure, primitive Christian Faith, and the spirit that interprets its sacred mysteries. Without that Spirit no man, whatever his intelligence, whatever his education and culture, can comprehend the Gospel or know Him whom to know is life eternal.

God’s Work and Glory

This Church is not the work of man. Had it been man’s creation it would have succumbed long ago to the assaults made upon it by the adversary of souls. It is not built upon the sand of ancient tradition or of modern theorization. It is rounded upon the rock-Divine Revelation-God’s gracious will and the glad consent of his people. Therefore is it destined to endure and to withstand every shock. The hosts of evil may hurl themselves against it, but they cannot prevail against it, nor shake the firm foundation upon which it stands as immovable and immutable as the throne of Him who sitteth in the midst of Eternity, and who has said in words that can never die: “My work and my glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man!” Amen.