“On the Shoulders of Giants”
Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law Society Devotional
Saturday, February 28, 2004, 6:00 P.M.
President Boyd K. Packer
Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
"... I charge each of you lawyers and judges and put you on alert: These are days of great spiritual danger for this people. The world is spiraling downward at an ever-quickening pace. I am sorry to tell you that it will not get better. I know of nothing in the history of the Church or in the history of the world to compare with our present circumstances."

In my hand is a two-pound English coin. Around the edge is
inscribed the words “Stood on
the shoulders of giants.”
Sir Isaac Newton invented calculus and the reflective telescope,
defined the laws of motion,
and an astonishing list of other things. Asked how he was able to
do it all, he answered: “I stood on
the shoulders of giants.”1
We stand on the shoulders of a giant: President J. Reuben Clark.
Less than a month after my 37th birthday, I was sustained as a
General Authority. On October
6, 1961, I was set apart in the council room by the First
Presidency, and later that same day I received
word, “President Clark just passed away.” His ministry closed the
same day that mine began.
The mention of his name polishes the windows of my memory. I see
clearly and feel deeply
the memory of this great man. Now you must not assume that I
suppose that I compare in stature
with him. I am, with you, one of many who stood on his shoulders.
My close personal contacts with President Clark were very few. I
heard him speak many
times. I stood in awe of him.
I was in his office once and remember very clearly how he looked
and what he said. I sat next
to him at the dinner when he gave his address entitled
“Reflective Speculation.”2 And there were
other times.
The Question
Now I have a question for you of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society.
I quote President George
Albert Smith, the second of the three Presidents to whom J.
Reuben Clark served as a counselor.
President Smith said:
A number of years ago I was seriously ill, in fact, I think
everyone gave me up but my
wife. With my family I went to St. George, Utah, to see if it
would improve my health. We
went as far as we could by train, and then continued the journey
in a wagon, in the bottom
of which a bed had been made for me.
In St. George we arranged for a tent for my health and comfort,
with a built-in floor
raised about a foot above the ground, and we could roll up the
south side of the tent to make
the sunshine and fresh air available. I became so weak as to be
scarcely able to move. It was
a slow and exhausting effort for me even to turn over in bed.
One day, under these conditions, I lost consciousness of my
surroundings and thought
I had passed to the Other Side. I found myself standing with my
back to a large and beautiful
lake, facing a great forest of trees. There was no one in sight,
and there was no boat upon
the lake or any other visible means to indicate how I might have
arrived there. I realized, or
seemed to realize, that I had finished my work in mortality and
had gone home. I began to
look around, to see if I could not find someone. There was no
evidence of anyone living
there, just those great, beautiful trees in front of me and the
wonderful lake behind me.
I began to explore, and soon I found a trail through the woods
which seemed to have
been used very little, and which was almost obscured by grass. I
followed this trail, and after
I had walked for some time and had traveled a considerable
distance through the forest, I saw
a man coming towards me. I became aware that he was a very large
man, and I hurried my
steps to reach him, because I recognized him as my grandfather.
In mortality he weighed over
three hundred pounds, so you may know he was a large man. I
remember how happy I was
to see him coming. I had been given his name [George Albert
Smith] and had always been
proud of it.
When Grandfather came within a few feet of me, he stopped. His
stopping was an
invitation for me to stop. Then . . . he looked at me very
earnestly and said:
“I would like to know what you have done with my name?”
Everything I had ever done passed before me as though it were a
flying picture on a
screen—everything I had done. Quickly this vivid retrospect came
down to the very time I
was standing there. My whole life had passed before me. I smiled
and looked at my
grandfather and said:
“I have never done anything with your name of which you need be
ashamed.”
He stepped forward and took me in his arms, and as he did so, I
became conscious
again of my earthly surroundings. My pillow was as wet as though
water had been poured
on it—wet with tears of gratitude that I could answer unashamed.3
The question is: What are you doing with the name of President J.
Reuben Clark?
President J. Reuben Clark
President Clark’s service was divided into two equal parts:
twenty-eight years in law and
government and twenty-eight years as counselor in the First
Presidency.
President Clark grew up as a farm boy in tiny Grantsville. At age
eleven he could plow with
a team of horses. If the weather was too cold for others to go,
he would walk to the evening
sacrament meeting alone.
In a large family he learned to work. He had a father and a
mother of pioneer virtue and
integrity. His father wrote in his journal, “I went down between
the barley and wheat in the old ditch,
and knelt down and prayed and dedicated the grain that we have
sown and asked the blessings of the
Lord upon it; this I do every year with everything that I
plant.”4
Another local boy, Heber J. Grant, knew him well. These two farm
boys would meet again.
With an elementary school education and at the urging of his
father, President Clark moved
to Salt Lake City to go to college. Dr. James E. Talmage was his
mentor. When he went east to
school, Dr. Talmage said, “He possessed the brightest mind ever
to leave Utah.”5
He married Luacine Savage. They became parents of three daughters
and one son. From
1898 to 1903 he was teacher and administrator in Heber and in
Cedar City.
Before leaving to study law, he called on President Joseph F.
Smith. President Smith
cautioned him about the field of law and set him apart on a
mission to be an exemplary Latter-day
Saint.
Years earlier another young man wanted to go east to study law.
James Henry Moyle, father
of President Henry D. Moyle, met with President John Taylor.
President Taylor said he was
“opposed to any of our young men going away to study law. It is a
dangerous profession.”
His counselor George Q. Cannon persuaded President Taylor that
“Brother Joseph had to
engage lawyers. So [did] Brother Brigham.”
President Taylor agreed then that it would be all right for
Brother Moyle to go, and then he
spoke of “the pitfalls into which the young man might slip unless
he [was] careful.” He gave him a
blessing, from which I quote:
As thou hast had in thine heart a desire to go forth to study law
. . . , we say unto thee
that this is a dangerous profession, one that leads many people
down to destruction; . . .
abstain from corruption and bribery and covetousness, and from
arguing falsely and on false
principles, maintaining only the things that can be honorably
sustained by honorable men; . . .
We set thee apart . . . to go forth as thou hast desired to study
and become acquainted
with all the principles of law and equity; [then there is a big
“if”in the blessing] if thou wilt
abstain from chicanery and from fraud and from covetousness, and
[another “if”] if thou wilt
cleave to the truth, God will bless thee.
He was promised by President Taylor that if he would do these
things, he would “grow up
in virtue, in intelligence, power and wisdom, and stand as a
mighty man among the House of Israel,
and be a defender of the rights and liberties and immunities of
the people of God.”
And this promise: “But if thou doest not these things, thou wilt
go down and wither away.”6
In 1903 President Clark took his family to New York City to
attend the Columbia University
School of Law. In 1906 he graduated head of his class with an
LL.B. degree. Shortly after he was
appointed as Department of State Assistant Solicitor, and he
published his classic “Memorandum on
the Right to Protect Citizens in Foreign Countries by Landing
Forces.” (Does that not sound familiar
today?)
While living in Washington, D.C., he was appointed as an
assistant professor of law at George
Washington University.
He opened law offices in Washington, D.C., in New York City, and
in Salt Lake City, where
he specialized in international and municipal law.
A staunch Republican, he became influential in both Utah and
national politics.
They tried more than once to draft him to run for the United
States Senate. There was also
an effort made to draft him as a candidate for the presidency of
the United States until he firmly
refused.
During World War I President Clark served as a major on duty with
the U.S. Attorney
General’s office. He helped prepare the original Selective
Service regulations. He was awarded the
Distinguished Service Medal.
President Calvin Coolidge appointed him as Under Secretary of
State in 1928. He then
published his “Memorandum on the Monroe Doctrine.” Even his
critics praised it as a “monument
of erudition,” a “masterly treatise.”7
The title of your society’s semiannual publication is The Clark
Memorandum.
Call to the First Presidency
In 1930 J. Reuben Clark was named as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico.
Two and a half years
later he was called by letter as second counselor to President
Heber J. Grant.
General conference had come and gone, and a vacancy in the First
Presidency was not filled.
A senior Apostle told me that two members of the Twelve waited
upon President Grant and said,
“We see you did not fill the vacancy in the Presidency.”
President Grant replied, “I know the man the Lord wants me to
have, and he is not ready yet.”
Pointing his cane at each of them, he said, “I know that feeling
when it comes. I had it when I called
you! And I had it when I called you!”
“When that cane pointed at me,” one of them told me, “I felt as
if I had been electrocuted.”
It was nearly a year before President Clark was able to come to
Church headquarters. During
the first fifteen months he was away for five months in
Washington, D.C., or abroad on-call for the
President of the United States.
In October 1933 J. Reuben Clark Jr. was honored at a dinner in
Beverly Hills, California.
Telegrams of tribute arrived—also one letter from Will Rogers,
philosopher and humorist, perhaps
the best-known American of his time. Will Rogers apologized for
the letter but said, “I have more
to say than I am able to pay for [in a telegram].”
John Nance Garner, the Vice President of the United States, was
there, of whom Rogers said
in his letter, “He . . . deserves [better work] than he’s got.”
Rogers then spoke in admiration of J. Reuben Clark and closed,
“So, God Bless Reuben
Clark, and make him a Democrat, or Republican as necessity
demands! [signed] Will.”8
President Clark came to the First Presidency virtually unknown in
the Church. He had held
no administrative positions, even on the local level.
He kept things very plain and simple. The president of Equitable
Life once sent him a speech.
President Clark replied, “A lot of it was over my head [trying to
understand it], but I sort of held my
breath and struggled to the top. . . . I accept your conclusions
whether or not I fully understand the
reasons, and I congratulate you on another fine speech.”9
I can imagine President Clark in his library with words scattered
about on his desk. I see him
discarding the longer ones and then picking up a word and fitting
it into a sentence and then replacing
it with one easier to understand. From words he made sentences,
often very long ones, fastening
them together into paragraphs and bundling them together into his
inspired sermons.
His Reverence for the Lord
One way or another his writing and his speaking had a common
theme. It was there when he
first spoke in church at age eleven. Like Nephi, “[he talked] of
Christ, [he rejoiced] in Christ, [he
preached] of Christ, [he prophesied] of Christ, and [he wrote]
according to our prophecies, that our
children may know to what source they may look for a remission of
their sins” (2 Nephi 25:26).
His classic books Our Lord of the Gospels10 and Behold the Lamb
of God11 are examples.
His “The Charted Course of the Church in Education,”12 prepared
by assignment from the
First Presidency, is an enduring classic akin to scripture.
I give you two examples from his sermons. To the priesthood he
spoke of the burden of debt:
Interest never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the
hospital; it works on
Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation; it never visits
nor travels; it takes no pleasure;
it is never laid off work nor discharged from employment; it
never works on reduced hours.
. . . Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of
the day and night; you cannot
shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields
neither to entreaties, demands, or
orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or
fail to meet its demands, it
crushes you.”13
From his classic address “They of the Last Wagon” given in 1947,
the centennial of the arrival
of the Pioneers:
Morning came when from out that last wagon floated the la-la of
the newborn babe,
and mother love made a shrine, and Father bowed in reverence
before it. But the train must
move on. So out into the dust and dirt the last wagon moved
again, swaying and jolting, while
Mother eased as best she could each pain-giving jolt so no harm
might be done her, that she
might be strong to feed the little one, bone of her bone, flesh
of her flesh. Who will dare to
say that angels did not cluster round and guard her and ease her
rude bed, for she had given
another choice spirit its mortal body that it might work out its
God-given destiny?14
President Clark’s mother was one of those so born in 1848.
Criticism
To President Clark criticism seemed to be an inescapable
accompaniment of the doing of
righteousness. He once wrote:
It seems sometimes as if the darkness that surrounds us is all
but impenetrable. I can
see on all sides the signs of one great evil master mind working
for the overturning of our
civilization, the destruction of religion, the reduction of men
to the status of animals. This
mind is working here and there and everywhere.15
President Clark spoke of the Pioneer leaders and in so doing
described himself:
Upright men they were, and fearless, unmindful of what men
thought or said of them,
if they were in their line of duty. Calumny, slander, derision,
scorn left them unmoved, if they
were treading the straight and narrow way. Uncaring they were of
men’s blame and censure,
if the Lord approved them. Unswayed they were by the praise of
men, to wander from the
path of truth. Endowed by the spirit of discernment, they [knew]
when kind words were mere
courtesy, and when they betokened honest interest. They moved
neither to the right nor to
the left from the path of truth to court the good favor of men.16
Intellectual Vision
President Harold B. Lee said of President Clark:
In the universal sweep of his great intellectual vision he had
few equals and perhaps
no superiors. He once said of his grandfather on his maternal
line, Bishop Edwin D. Woolley:
“He was so eloquent in political discourse that even his enemies
came out to hear him.” So
it has been with this grandson of Bishop Woolley [referring to
President Clark]. Even those
who violently disagree with his views [and there were many] are
intrigued by his eloquence,
his forthrightness, pure logic, and penetrating insight into the
center and core of whatever
subjects he undertakes to expound.17
It was said of Bishop Woolley that if he should drown in a river,
they would look upstream
for the body.
President Spencer Woolley Kimball was a cousin of President
Clark. When President Kimball
would be very resolute (a kinder word than stubborn), one of the
Brethren would say, “Well, he’s
a Woolley.”
A young university student of political science once spoke to
Elder Lee about the student’s
vigorous disagreement with President Clark’s lecture “Our
Dwindling Sovereignty” at the University
of Utah. Elder Lee’s response was, “Yes, I suppose it would be
difficult for a pigmy to get the
viewpoint of a giant. When I go to hear world authority. . . , I
go to learn and not to criticize.”18
Other Giants
There are other giants of the law upon whose shoulders I have
stood—Presidents Marion G.
Romney, Henry D. Moyle, Howard W. Hunter, and James E. Faust.
The saintly Abraham Lincoln said that “lawyers should discourage
litigation. Persuade [your]
clients to compromise. The lawyer who is a peacemaker can become
a good man. There will be
business enough. . . . Never stir up litigation. If you do, a
worse man can scarcely be found.”19
John K. Edmunds had a distinguished legal career. He served as a
stake president in Chicago.
David M. Kennedy, later Secretary of the Treasury, was his
counselor. Brother Edmunds later served
as president of the Salt Lake Temple.
He told me that a widow once came to him for help on a property
matter. When he
completed the papers and gave them to her, she asked, “How much
do I owe you?”
He looked at her and said, “Why don’t you pay me what you think
it’s worth.”
Relieved, she got out her coin purse and produced a quarter and
put it in his hand.
He told me, “I looked at the quarter and looked at her. Then I
got out my coin purse and
gave her ten cents change.”
Only a wicked lawyer would take advantage of a widow or orphans
or anyone else.
In Liberty Jail Erastus Snow, who probably could not afford legal
counsel, asked Joseph
Smith what he should do:
Brother Joseph told him to plead his own case.
“But,” said Brother Snow, “I do not understand the law.”
Brother Joseph asked him if he did not understand justice; he
thought he did.
“Well,” said Brother Joseph, “go and plead for justice as hard as
you can, and quote
Blackstone and other authors now and then, and they will take it
all for law.”20
A Charge
Those giants I named, like you, had something that I do not
have—a degree in law. With this
credential comes obligation.
You who hold the priesthood must be exemplars above reproach.
And I charge each of you lawyers and judges and put you on alert:
These are days of great
spiritual danger for this people. The world is spiraling downward
at an ever-quickening pace. I am
sorry to tell you that it will not get better.
I know of nothing in the history of the Church or in the history
of the world to compare with
our present circumstances. Nothing happened in Sodom and Gomorrah
which exceeds the
wickedness and depravity which surrounds us now.
Satan uses every intrigue to disrupt the family. The sacred
relationship between man and
woman, husband and wife, through which mortal bodies are
conceived and life is passed from one
generation to the next generation, is being showered with filth.
Profanity, vulgarity, blasphemy, and pornography are broadcast
into the homes and minds of
the innocent. Unspeakable wickedness, perversion, and abuse—not
even exempting little
children—once hidden in dark places, now seeks protection from
courts and judges.
The Lord needs you who are trained in the law. You can do for
this people what others
cannot do. We should not need to go beyond the members of the
Church to find superior legal
counsel.
A Caution
Now I caution you, as President John Taylor warned James Moyle
and as Joseph Smith
warned Stephen A. Douglas at the pinnacle of his political
triumph, “If ever you turn your hand
against . . . the Latter-day Saints, you will feel the weight of
the hand of Almighty upon you.”21
We must look to you for legal counsel. You have, or should have,
the spirit of discernment.
It was given you when you had conferred upon you the gift of the
Holy Ghost.
You must locate where the snares are hidden and help guide our
footsteps around them.
Morally Mixed-Up World
You face a much different world than did President Clark. The
sins of Sodom and Gomorrah
were localized. They are now spread across the world, wherever
the Church is. The first line of
defense—the home—is crumbling. Surely you can see what the
adversary is about.
The Prophets Have Warned
We are now exactly where the prophets warned we would be.
Paul prophesied word by word and phrase by phrase, describing
things exactly as they are
now. I will quote from Paul’s prophecy and check the words that
fit our society:
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
For men shall be lovers of their own selves—Check!
covetous—Check!
boasters—Check!,
proud—Check!
blasphemers—Check!
disobedient to parents—Check! Check!
unthankful—Check!
unholy—Check!
Without natural affection—Check! Check!
trucebreakers—Check!
false accusers—Check!
incontinent—Check!
fierce—Check!
despisers of those that are good—Check!
Traitors—Check!
heady—Check!
highminded—Check!
lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God—Check! Check!
Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from
such turn away.
For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead
captive silly women laden
with sins, led away with divers lusts,
Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the
truth (2 Timothy 3:1–7;
emphasis added).
Recently Judge Robert H. Bork said:
Judicial invention of new and previously unheard-of rights
accelerated over the past
half-century and has now reached warp speed. It is not just
Grutter’s permission to
discriminate against white males and Lawrence’s creation of a
right to homosexual sodomy.
The Court has created rights to televised sexual acts and
computer-simulated child
pornography and, in direct contradiction of the historical
evidence, has continued its almost
frenzied hostility to religion. . . .
In these and other judgements, the Court is shrinking the area of
self-government
without any legitimate authority to do so, in the Constitution or
elsewhere. In the process it
is revising the moral and cultural life of the nation.22
Once with other members of a city council, we met in the office
of the city attorney. He
pointed to a wall with law books and said, “Gentlemen, they are
just like a violin. I can play any tune
on them you are willing to pay for.” I thought there was
something not right about that.
The Lord Himself, strongly condemning the lawyers, scribes, and
Pharisees, said: “Woe unto
you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be
borne, and ye yourselves touch not
the burdens with one of your fingers” (Luke 11:46).
From the writings of the Prophet Alma:
These lawyers were learned in all the arts and cunning of the
people; . . .
[The lawyers] began to question Amulek, that thereby they might
make him cross his
words, or contradict the words which he should speak. . . .
They knew not that Amulek could know of their designs. . . . He
perceived their
thoughts, and he said unto them: O ye wicked and perverse
generation, ye lawyers and
hypocrites, for ye are laying the foundations of the devil; for
ye are laying traps and snares to
catch the holy ones of God. . . .
And now behold, I say unto you, that the foundation of the
destruction of this people
is beginning to be laid by the unrighteousness of your lawyers
and your judges (Alma 10:15–17,
27).
Nephi, son of Helaman, described what happened when the
Gadiantons took over the lawyers
and the judges: “Condemning the righteous because of their
righteousness; letting the guilty and the
wicked go unpunished because of their money” (Helaman 7:5).
You have heard of the courageous lawyer who, having been fined
fifty dollars for contempt
of court, replied, “It is an honest debt, Your Honor, and I shall
gladly pay it.”
Lawyers and judges and even the sacred institution of the jury
are being tarnished. When one
considers some of the high-profile verdicts, one could believe
this conversation:
Judge: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached your
verdict?”
Jury: “We have, Your Honor. We find the defendant innocent by
reason of insanity.”
Judge: “What? All twelve of you?”
When Moroni was translating the twenty-four gold plates, he
interrupted his narrative to
speak directly to us in our day. He told of the Gadiantons and
their bands (in our day we would call
them gangs):
Wherefore, O ye Gentiles [that is us], it is wisdom in God that
these things should be
shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and
suffer not that these murderous
combinations shall get above you, . . .
[He then warned us in unmistakable plainness]: Wherefore, the
Lord commandeth
you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall
awake to a sense of your
awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall
be among you; . . .
Wherefore, I, Moroni, am commanded to write these things that
evil may be done
away, and that the time may come that Satan may have no power
upon the hearts of the
children of men, but that they may be persuaded to do good
continually, that they may come
unto the fountain of all righteousness and be saved (Ether
8:23–24, 26).
When the Saints in Missouri were suffering great persecutions,
the Lord said that the
Constitution of the United States was given that every man may
act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according
to the moral agency which I have given unto him. [Notice that it
does not say free agency, it says moral
agency. The agency we have is a moral agency.] . . .
For this purpose have I established the Constitution of this
land, by the hands of wise
men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the
land by the shedding of
blood (D&C 101:78, 80; emphasis added).
The present major political debate centers on values and morals
and the Constitution.
There occurs from time to time reference to the Constitution
hanging by a thread. President
Brigham Young said:
The general Constitution of our country is good, and a wholesome
government could
be framed upon it; for it was dictated by the invisible
operations of the Almighty. . . .
Will the Constitution be destroyed? No. It will be held inviolate
by this people; and
as Joseph Smith said “the time will come when the destiny of this
nation will hang upon a
single thread, and at this critical juncture, this people will
step forth and save it from the
threatened destruction.” It will be so.23
I do not know when that day will come or how it will come to
pass. I feel sure that when it
does come to pass, among those who will step forward from among
this people will be men who hold
the Holy Priesthood and who carry as credentials a bachelor or
doctor of law degree. And women,
also, of honor. And there will be judges as well.
Others from the world outside the Church will come, as Colonel
Thomas Kane did, and bring
with them their knowledge of the law to protect this people.
We may one day stand alone, but we will not change or lower our
standards or change our
course.
What Will You Do with His Name?
Near the end of his life, President Clark spoke at a dinner at
Brigham Young University. I
sat next to him. We steadied him as he made his way slowly and
laboriously down the steps to his
car and drove away into the night. That was the last time I saw
him.
The funeral of President J. Reuben Clark Jr. was the first
General Authority funeral I attended.
South Temple was blocked off between State Street and West
Temple. The General Authorities
assembled in front of the Church Administration Building. There
were thirty-eight of us then. With
measured steps, we followed the hearse down the center of the
street.
The solemn procession moved through the south gate of Temple
Square and around to the
northwest door of the Tabernacle. There we formed an honor guard,
half on each side of the door,
and stood at attention while the casket bearing President Clark
and his family passed between us.
I ask you who belong to the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, What
will you do with his name?
It is very certain that one day you will be accountable to
President Clark.
And it is equally certain that you members of The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints
will be accountable for what you have done with the Lord’s name.
I wonder if you who are now lawyers or you who are students of
the law know how much
you are needed as defenders of the faith. Be willing to give of
your time and of your means and your
expertise to the building up of the Church and the kingdom of God
and the establishment of Zion,
which we are under covenant to do—not just to the Church as an
institution, but to members and
ordinary people who need your professional protection.
Another Testimonial Dinner
I told you about the dinner honoring J. Reuben Clark in Beverly
Hills, California. There was
another dinner held at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. It
was a tribute to President J. Reuben
Clark on his retirement from the board of the Equitable Life
Assurance Society. Elder Harold B. Lee
was there to succeed him on the board.
Elder Lee told me that prior to the event President Clark called
him to his hotel room. He
found President Clark sitting, leaning on his cane, pensive and
unusually nervous. He wanted to
inspect Brother Lee’s formal dress to see that his cummerbund was
just right.
Imagine those assembled, the great men of the world—cabinet
ministers, leaders in business
and government—all of different faiths. President Clark and Elder
Lee were the only two members
of the Church present.
President Clark began his valedictory by addressing them as “my
brethren.” He taught them
about the Lord Jesus Christ and concluded with his fervent
testimony.
I conclude with my fervent testimony and invoke a blessing upon
you who are lawyers and
judges and who have great power to defend this people.
I invoke the blessings of our Heavenly Father upon you in your
studies, in your practice, and
more particularly in your home and in your family, that the
Spirit of the Lord and the spirit of
righteousness will be with you.
I pray that you can take justice and mercy and find a balance in
them and fix them firmly with
absolute integrity, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes:
1. Sir Isaac Newton, letter to Robert Hooke, Feb. 1676.
2. J. Reuben Clark Jr., “Reflective Speculation,” address given
at Seminary and Institute
Teachers Summer Session, 21 June 1954.
3. Sharing the Gospel with Others, Preston Nibley, comp. [Salt
Lake City: Deseret Book Co.,
1948], 110-12.
4. Journal of Joshua Clark, vol. 12, 25 Mar. 1886.
5. Harold B. Lee, “President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.: An
Appreciation on His Ninetieth Birthday,”
Improvement Era, Sept. 1961, 632.
6. Gordon B. Hinckley, James Henry Moyle: The Story of a
Distinguished American and an
Honored Churchman [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1951],
130–33.
7. David H. Yarn Jr., “Biographical Sketch of J. Reuben Clark,
Jr.,” BYU Studies, 13 (spring
1973), 240.
8. Will Rogers to “Mr. Toastmaster,” 13 Oct. 1933.
9. J. Reuben Clark Jr. to Thomas I. Parkinson, 11 July 1947, fd
16, box 376, J. Reuben Clark
Papers.
10. J. Reuben Clark Jr., Our Lord of the Gospels: A Harmony of
the Gospels [Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book Co., 1954].
11. J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Behold the Lamb of God, [Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book Company,
1991].
12. The Charted Course of the Church in Education, rev. ed.
[pamphlet, 1994; item 32709].
13. J. Reuben Clark Jr. in Conference Report, Apr. 1938:103.
14. J. Reuben Clark Jr., “They of the Last Wagon,” Improvement
Era, Nov. 1947, 705.
15. J. Reuben Clark Jr. in Conference Report, Oct. 1935, 92.
16. J. Reuben Clark Jr., “They of the Last Wagon,” Improvement
Era, Nov. 1947, 747–48.
17. Harold B. Lee, “President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.: An
Appreciation on His Ninetieth Birthday,”
Improvement Era, Sept. 1961, 632.
18. Harold B. Lee, “President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.: An
Appreciation on His Ninetieth Birthday,”
Improvement Era, Sept. 1961, 632.
19. Abraham Lincoln, notes for a law lecture, 1 July 1850.
20. History of the Church, 3:258.
21. History of the Church, 5:394.
22. “Has the Supreme Court Gone Too Far?” Commentary, vol. 116,
no. 3 [Oct. 2003], 25–48.
23. Brigham Young in Journal History, 4 July 1854.