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TO THOSE WHO TEACH IN TROUBLED TIMES
This is the first time I have come before you as one of the
members of the Council of the Twelve. I can't get used to
that, although the preparation for it and the testing prior to it is
something that one doesn't forget at all, nor, I suppose, would
one want to submit to that twice in one lifetime. But I want
you to know that I know without any doubt, from personal
experience, that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints is, as declared, the only true and living Church upon the
face of the whole earth; that the Lord Jesus Christ in person
directs this work. His servants here upon the earth come and go
at his bidding, and his inspiration is constantly with us; so I
come humbly and seek an interest in your faith and prayers.
Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. . . . [And then this injunction.] But continue thou in the things which thou has learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them. . . . That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2 Timothy 3:1 8, 14, 17). We move into perilous, troublesome times, and there is unrest everywhere. I was in Seattle attending a conference a few weeks ago; and in the meeting with the bishops and high counselors, the first question that came up was, When should we move to Salt Lake Valley? Things are getting rough up there, and economic problems are compounding their fears. In California not too long ago, one of the stake leaders said, What are the Brethren doing in Salt Lake Valley, the valley of the mountains, to prepare to invite industry and to store supplies so that when things get too bad here we can move there? And after some thought I said, Nothing. Why should we? There is no answer there. Let me suggest what you do when there is or could be civil unrest or violence on the campus where you work in the institute or in the community where you are teaching seminary. First, instructions on what to do to protect Church-owned property and to secure the persons yourself, your students, and so on will come from President Berrett. He is acquainted with proper procedures and is giving instruction as necessary. You will find that these instructions tie you very closely with the stake presidents in the area, who in turn have and will receive instruction on this; so I don t want to talk about that part of it. I want to talk about things that are more important. I think the uneasiness, by and large, is there. It's in Seattle and Los Angeles and other places, but I don't think you notice much great concern on the part of the Brethren. I recall not too many years ago riding to the office one morning and turning on the radio as they were excitedly announcing that someone had placed a bomb at the temple. The front doors of the temple had been blown off. Remember that? Most of you don't because it is just not that important it isn't worth remembering. We were then using the parking lot north of the Relief Society building; and as I went to the office, I glanced across the street. There was a lot of action around the temple people, police cars, fire trucks, and everything. But I was late to a meeting; so I had to resist the temptation to go over and see what was going on. I was in meetings with combination of the Brethren all day. As I went back that night about 6:30 or 7:00, there was no one at the temple; but there were some big sheets of plywood over the place where the doors had been. Then it struck me. All day long in meeting with the Brethren, not once, for one second, was that thing ever brought up. It wasn't even mentioned. And why? Because there was work to do, you know. Why be concerned about that? Samuel Johnson wrote something that I think has an application here that we ought to remember. A fly can sting a stately horse and make it wince, but one is still a stately horse and the other, well. There is the temptation always to get excited and, like the old Indian, jump on your horse and ride away in all directions. Don't, don't do that. Just stand steady. If there is anything that the youth of the Church need in perilous times like these, it is somebody who can stand secure and steady and serene, even when it's raining, and even if the lightning begins to strike right close. So my second suggestion is to stand steady; don't be in a panic; be secure. The Lord has said, Behold, I will fight your battles. Fear and faith are antagonistic to one another, and it is our obligation to promote faith, not fear; so stand steady. There is always the temptation it's true in Church schools, it's true in seminaries and institutes, it's true of the missionaries out in the mission field, it's true of the bishops and stake presidents-- there is the temptation always to want to fight. We have much to gain by learning to turn the other cheek. The Lord had something there for us when he said that. Let me give you an example. When I was president of the mission, one of the newspapers in the area in New England published an article about the Church. It had picked it up from another paper that was scurrilous. It was entirely wrong, and it was headlined across an inner page of the paper. The article was a kind of hark back to some of the untruths to which we were subjected a few generations ago. The missionaries got all excited about it. Some of them drove a hundred miles to bring that newspaper for me to see what had happened. I read it and said, Well, thanks; go on back and preach the gospel. They couldn't understand why I wasn't excited about it. They couldn't understand that I was excited about it and tried not to show it, I guess. They said, What shall we do? And I said, Go about your work; preach the gospel. But aren't you going to call the editor, and aren't you going to demand equal space and answer this? And the answer was no, because I didn't have time. All it takes is one critic or one heckler to take you right out of commission if you feel the necessity of answering everything that comes your way. Why don't you teach the students that? Why don't you teach the students to relax, and if they are bitten by a fly, to scratch it and go back to work? You see, if I had called that editor and said, Now look, and We demand, and so on, I suppose it's possible that we could have had him print a retraction of it maybe a two-line retraction on the last corner of that last page in the want ads where nobody would see it he might have been persuaded to do that much. We did nothing until later; then we began to cultivate his help and suggestions. All we did was have two missionaries go to see him and say, We are two missionaries, and we don't know very much. We're here without any compensation, paying our own way. We are supposed to preach the gospel in this town, and nobody seems to want to hear us. Now you are a newspaper editor, and you're in touch with people and know how they feel and how to communicate with them. Tell us what to do to get our job done. Will you help us? Who could resist that? And he didn't. So the day came within the year when there was another article in that same newspaper, headlined, that said, Latter-day Saints Have Dual Reason for Celebrating Christmas. Then in columns side by side were quotations from the New Testament and quotations from the Book of Mormon that sustain and bear witness of Christ; there was an explanation of the fact that we had a double reason for our worship, a double reason for our witness that Jesus is the Christ. Why don't you stay at your posts and just not get excited? When the kids come running to you all upset about this and that, why don't you just say, What else is new? You know, we have a good deal more to gain by staying on course, standing steady, than we have by trying to put out brush fires. So that would be my first element of counsel to you just be there, be secure, have faith, and be steady. Be the anchor, and all will be well. I have a feeling of reverence and awe when I think of education, when I think of the power you have. If we took each one of you and multiplied you by the number of students you taught this past year, and if we added these numbers, we would have quite a congregation. The thought is that we can speak through you to all those students, and then every year a new crop comes along; so the power of education is a monumental power. There is the possibility always present that it may be used perversely or that it may not be used to full intensity for righteous purposes. We are committed and biased. A few years ago I attended a breakfast meeting in Boston, and the president of Boston University was there. He had been newly appointed, and he made a statement of his position as university president: We can best serve as a neutral territory, a kind of arbiter where people can come to reason. When I wrote that down as he was speaking, I wrote on the same little card, Heaven help us if we ever degrade to that. Now let me read it again, because a lot of people think this is quite a fine statement. We can best serve as a neutral territory, a kind of arbiter where people can come to reason. In other words, he'll put good and evil in an arena, throw the student in the middle and let him referee it, and just hope for the best. Well, those hopes, as we now know, in many cases are ill-founded. So while you are staying at your post, and while you are standing steady, make sure that you are committed, that you are non-neutral, that you are biased, that you are one-sided, that you are on the Lord's side. We do not consent in any way to have the voice of the adversary or the other side speak in your classes. Can't you see that? Some of you tend to say, But our students have to see both sides of this picture. They surely do; and from a thousand pulpits, a thousand voices, they are hearing it from one side. And it is just your voice now, particularly on the university campuses, it is just your voice that's speaking the right side; so yours is not a playing field where good and evil can come and joust with one another until one side may win. Evil will find no invitation to contest in your classes. You are a training ground for one team, you are the coach, you are giving signals preparatory to the game of life; and you just don't welcome the scouts from the other team. Your job is to maintain a form of faith. Faith is the only voice to speak from your platform. There is, of course, the thought to say and I have seen this a time or two this past year as I have been traveling about -- Let's invite in some people who can kind of bring us up to date and put us next to the issues, and let's have some resource visitors come in and take over our classes. When I was in junior high school, I took a class in health. We thought it was a nuisance class. It was given on alternate days with physical education where we would swim and play basketball or something but it was required. I remember reading in our health book an account of a mother. In those days communicable diseases were a good deal more than just the nuisance that we find them now. More often than not in those days, for instance, diphtheria was fatal. I knew a woman once, a little old lady who was always nervous. She never could sit still; she always wrung her hands and looked sad. I could never understand why she seemed so sad until one day someone told me that in the early years of her marriage, while living in a tiny ranching community, in two days during a diphtheria epidemic she had seen all five of her children carried out one at a time to be buried on the hillside of the ranch. Listen carefully to the story I read, because this applies to you: A mother in the early part of the century was raising her family in a large community. She was concerned about their health and anxious about their physical well-being. She was hopeful that she could protect her family, particularly through the early years of life. A Mrs. Sullivan let her know that the Sullivan children had chicken pox. Because this mother was resourceful and because she was progressive and forward looking, she thought this was a good time to get that one over with; so she took her children to visit the Sullivans. The exposure would take place, of course; and within a few weeks, at least they would have that one out of the way. Well, there is a lot to that account. She thought the season was right and the circumstances were right, but the ending of that story I won't forget. It was a few days later when word was brought from the Sullivans. The doctor had been summoned because of the fact that one of the children was so deathly sick. Can you imagine how the mother felt when she heard the verdict the doctor had pronounced upon the dying child? It is not chicken pox, Mrs. Sullivan; it's smallpox that your children are afflicted with. In your classes, I seriously question that much good comes from the so-called resource visitors, save they come for one purpose-- to reinforce you, to sustain you in bearing witness, in building faith, in sustaining the doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you yield the pulpit, as it were, in your classes to someone, let it be to the stake president, to the bishop, to the regional representative of the Twelve, to the patriarch, to the man of faith, or to another member of the Church who is firm in his faith, and who will confirm by another voice the witness that you are trying to establish in the minds and hearts of Latter-day Saint young people. I am sure in one case I found this year that it was smallpox, not chicken pox, to which that progressive teacher was exposing his students. You have a great responsibility; and, of course, there comes with that a great opportunity. You have the responsibility to be the anchor; you have the responsibility to stand steady. Somewhere on earth in our day our youth must, positively must, be able to tie to someone who is not confused and who is secure in his faith. Just a short time ago I had a young couple come to see me in company with their bishop, who had made the appointment. She, the student, wife of a student, had measles afflict their two-year-old daughter; and it was a very severe case of measles. She contracted it and underwent the usual adult experience of having it hit her harder than it did the youngster. It was only when she was recovering that she found she was pregnant. Her doctor immediately recommended an abortion. She was concerned about it and sought other counsel. Two other doctors confirmed the recommendation. Two of the three doctors were members of the Church. And there came a Gethsemane to that young husband and wife what to do. The best medical advice they could get agreed in counsel, but she said, What does the Church teach? The doctor alleged to her that the Church approved it. Finally, after their Gethsemane, this young couple determined that they would take the course of living with whatever problems presented themselves, but that they would keep their child; and they had come for a special blessing. I told this young mother that not too long ago I had seen someone who fifteen years ago had been in the same situation, but who had taken the other course. With the best knowledge and information that the world could provide, and considering some supposedly very important ethical principles involved, they had decided that it would be better for all concerned not to bring into the world a possibly handicapped child. And I said to this young mother, You can imagine what happened to that mother when they moved to another city and became close to another family and, as they were talking about moments of crises, the other mother, pointing to a laughing, beautiful, healthy child, said, We were really afraid about our little girl. We weren't sure she would be normal because I had the measles just after I got pregnant, and the doctors... And you know the rest. Well, there is a kind of personal hell that a lot of people live in. This young couple stood at the crossroad, and they didn't know which way to turn except that they wanted to know the position of the Church on this. Somebody has to stand, face the storm, declare the truth, and let the winds blow, and be serene and composed and steady in the doing of it. That is your responsibility and your obligation as teachers; so don't yield the pulpit to supposedly resource visitors, save it be to those who will build faith. There is a position of truth strong, powerful, steady. There is a road, and there is a borrow pit on either side of it. Do you know what I mean by that? If you get too far to the left of your lane of traffic, you'll end up in the borrow pit. I suppose there isn't anybody here in doubt that if you get too far in the other direction, there's one just as deep. I used to be a pilot. In those days before radar, we used to fly on radio beams; and they had that beam sent out in just one line. On one side the letter A was continually broadcast; on the other side the letter N was continually broadcast; and then in the middle there was a steady beam so that there was solid sound. If you turned to the right, it would break up into da-di-da-di. If you went to the left, it would break up into di-da-di-da; and the only place you were really safe was right on the beam where there was steady sound, steady communication. That was vital. I remember in Tokyo, for instance, they had a beam that went out over Tokyo Bay; and it was a very perilous place to come in because there was an island there. It just wasn't safe and the pilots knew it because of the map to be anyplace but right on the beam when they were coming in at low level for landing. Well now, steady, steady on the beam, and the more sure word of prophecy and power will be yours. You will be guided, and you won't have to worry. Let the flies buzz around if they want; and if someone wants to break a window, I think we can afford another one. Who are we, anyway? Are we the ones who were born to be immune from any persecution or any penalties in connection with the gospel? Who are we, anyway? Are we the one generation who was to be born with everything-- popularity, everything else? I think it's a marvelous time, a wonderfully marvelous time to live when life becomes a challenge, when it becomes a test, a real test. And you have the opportunity --I envy your opportunity --to teach Latter-day Saint youth in the time of great spiritual peril. There is one other thought that I would like to leave with you. It may be a little difficult to explain. President Berrett mentioned it. He was talking about the faces that the institute teachers present their face to the community, their face to the educational institution, their face to local Church leaders, their face to the students and then he mentioned one and underscored it as being the fundamental one, the face you present to God. And he made what I think is a marvelous statement: You probably will make mistakes, and he didn't seem to think that amounted to much, didn't need to be concerned about that as long as your desire was correct. You know, it's one thing to pull a boner when you didn't want to, and it's another thing to have an attitude which permits you to be pushing your ox in the mire during the week so you can pull it out on Sunday. In the meeting with the Presidency and the Twelve the other day, we were talking about men with reference to a very important appointment, and someone said, About five years ago this man made an unfortunate statement that was published in the newspaper. President Lee said, Well, so what? Who hasn't made a mistake? I guess there isn't a man here in this circle who hasn't said some foolish thing or done something silly. And he said, I doubt if we are going to find a perfect man, and I think we had just better be patient with a few mistakes. And he said, Any of us or all of us may have made a rash, silly statement some time. Then President Tanner added, Yes, we either made it, or we should have. So the point is this: Why don't we have everyone here and all who belong here, but by appointment are still out teaching that is, the whole body of seminary and institute people why don't we accomplish something that's critical and vital that would bring monumental spiritual power into this group? Is there any reason why every one of us without exception, every single solitary soul cannot be perfect in his desire to do that which is right? Then it can be said one day when you re standing to be judged, either judged for your activities as a teacher of youth, or judged for your ministry in life, that your desire was right. I suppose there are going to be some failures; I suppose I had some failures when I was teaching. I don't like to think about them. But there is one thing I have as protection. Beginning at a certain point in my life, any mistake I made I could truthfully say I didn't want to. I may have pulled a boner, but it was because of ignorance or something else-- I didn't want to. I have the idea that many go through life with their minds something like a corner lot at a city intersection, just a lot on which there is no house. It s used for many things children cross it to play, people cross it going here and there, sometimes a car will take a shortcut across it. Here is a mind, a vacant playing field; and anyone who comes by can crisscross it. I don't have that anymore. On my lot I have some signs that say No Trespassing, and then I list to whom that refers. I will not consent to contamination of the slightest single spot from a perverse source. I will not consent to it. If a thought like that enters my mind, it comes as a trespasser; it comes as an unwanted intruder. I do consent openly without reservation, hopefully, with anxiety, pleadingly, with all invitation to inspiration from the Lord. Now I just ask you, do you have your No Trespassing signs up? Do you have your relationship with yourself and your relationship with the Lord established to the point that you have declared to whom you will listen and to whom you will not? Well, lots of influences come to the edge of the property, and they try to find a path that isn't marked. Once in a while they find a new one, and then I am busy making another sign to guard that one too, because I have my agency and I will not consent. I will not. I will not consent to any influence from the adversary. I have come to know what power he has. I know all about that. But I also have come to know the power of truth and of righteousness and of good, and I want to be good. I'm not ashamed to say that I want to be good. And I've found in my life that it has been critically important that this was established between me and the Lord, so that I knew that he knew which way I committed my agency. I went before him and said, I'm not neutral, and you can do with me what you want. If you need my vote, it's there. I don't care what you do with me, and you don t have to take anything from me because I give it to you everything, all I own, all I am, and that makes the difference. As the storms blow, the issues become confused; and there will be many who present themselves to cross the pathway of our mind to reach the minds of your students. They will dress themselves in disguises, but you will know them soon enough if you have opened your mind to the light of inspiration and committed your agency. So go on your quest to get this established individually, but let us agree that all of us together and each of us individually will desire to do what's right. In conclusion, I want to quote just a few lines from a talk I gave at BYU. There is a mariner's command, given usually by the captain to the helmsman, which embodies [what I have tried to say.] It is a command; but it becomes an expression of direction and reassurance, particularly when a vessel is set on course in difficult times. The expression is, Steady as she goes ( Steady As She Goes, Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year [Provo, 7 Jan. 1969], p. 2. Across the world this year there has been unrest, dissension, disorder, violence, insurrection, and beginnings of a revolution. It has indeed been a period of storm and tension. Our voyage on the sea of life now heads into those troubled waters. During the school year we have already ridden out a squall or two. Storm clouds gather ominously ahead. Perhaps they will pass over, but perhaps we must face the storm and ride it out. You are participants more than witnesses in the trying and important events in the history of the world and the history of the Church in our day. Thank God that you are born in this era. Be grateful that you are alive and have the happy opportunity, the priceless opportunity, of teaching in this momentous, adventuresome time. I do not doubt that we are sailing into troubled waters. There are storms to ride out; there are reefs and shoals to negotiate ere we reach port; but we have been through them before and have found safe passage. Consider this verse of scripture: The heavens shall be darkened, and a veil of darkness shall cover the earth; and the heavens shall shake, and also the earth; and great tribulations shall be among the children of men, but my people will I preserve (Moses 7:61). Steady as she goes. Our craft has weathered the storm before. It is seaworthy. What a glorious time to be alive; what a marvelous age in which to live! Thank the Lord for the privilege of living in an adventuresome day of challenge. And now to you who teach, there is a celestial radar revelation from God guiding us and guiding you. There is an inspired captain a prophet of God. I bear witness to you that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is just what you teach it to be --the only true and living Church upon the face of the whole earth. I bear witness that Jesus is the Christ, and that the Church was formulated for strength in difficult times. Steady as she goes. Now I leave for your contemplation these words about another storm at another time: And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. . . . And they awake him, and say unto him [as many say in our day], Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm (Mark 4:37 39; emphasis added). I bear to you my witness, now the special witness, that Jesus is the Christ. This I know. I invoke his blessings upon you as teachers in his seminary and institute program, praying that you will be sustained. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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