Gospel Doctrine: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Joseph F. Smith

by Joseph F. Smith

B.H. ROBERTS,

General Superintendency.

The foregoing Declaration of the Place and Privileges of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association was read and adopted at the Annual Conference, June 5, 1909.—Improvement Era, Vol. 12, August, 1909, p. 819.

PURPOSE OF MUTUAL IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATIONS. Our work is in one sense primary work, and yet it reaches beyond primary grades. The first and great object of the organization of the Mutual Improvement Associations as auxiliary organizations of the priesthood in the Church was to become instrumental in bringing the youth of Zion to a knowledge of the truth, and in guiding them into the straight and narrow path. We have found that there is in some degree a feeling of shyness and of fear that seizes the minds of some of our youth when the organizations of the priesthood are mentioned. Some of the children grow up more or less indifferent, more or less afraid of the responsibilities involved in the performances of the Church duties. They are like colts that need training, and it is difficult sometimes to reach them. But through these auxiliary organizations we have been able to reach out a guiding hand, and to exert an influence for good over many of our young men and women, whom it would have been difficult to reach by the organizations of the priesthood. So far, these organizations have accomplished a most excellent primary work; for this is in the sense of a primary work, and I do not know but the necessity of our organizations will continue as long as we have children growing up amongst us who are shy of the priesthood, and who are afraid of assuming the duties and responsibilities that belong to the Church.

Then we have instituted class work, have written manuals, and have given out subjects for study and improvement by all those who are connected with these organizations which have been intended to lead them along into greater experiences and better understanding of the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. For, after all, this is the great and grand object of these organizations.

The fact is, my brethren and sisters and friends, that the gospel of Christ is the biggest thing in the world. Very few of us, probably, comprehend its greatness. The way we are situated in life, engaged day in and day out, week in and week out, year in and year out, in the daily vocations of life; struggling to earn bread for our necessities, and the necessities of those who are dependent upon us, struggling to build homes for ourselves and our children; struggling to collect the elements of the earth and subdue them, and to bring them into subjection to our will; working, toiling, striving day by day in temporal things, in the cares and thoughts of the world, we are inclined to give very little thought, very little reflection to the more important things, those things which shall endure after mortality shall come to an end. And the most of mankind have come to the conclusion, judging them by their acts, and their walk and conversation in life, that the greatest thing in the world is to obtain wealth. And then, having obtained wealth and the things that wealth produces, or will bring to them, they feel that the rest of life and the responsibilities of it are very trifling and unimportant, and they leave their religion to their priests, if they have any religion at all. And the great majority of the world today, I believe, that is, on our hemisphere, are becoming very indifferent toward religion of any kind. The cheaper it can be found or obtained by them the better they like it; the less exertion required of them to be members of a church organization the better it suits them. The less care they are required to give to religion the better they like it; and if they can find something that will bring solace and case and relaxation to an overburdened conscience for having committed crime in the thought that men possess power to forgive sin, that suits them about as well as anything else, and a little better. Hence we can see where the world is drifting today as far as religion is concerned. If they can get it cheap, if it does not cause them any exertion, they do not mind having just a little of it. But this is not the case with Latter-day Saints. Nor is it the case with a living religion. For I want to tell you that the religion of Christ is not a Sunday religion; it is not a momentary religion; it is a religion that never ends; and it requires duties of its devotees on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and all of the days of the week just as sincerely, just as strongly, as it does on the Sabbath day. And I would not give the ashes of a rye straw, for a Sunday religion, or for a religion that is manufactured by men, whether by priests or laymen. My religion is the religion of God. It is the religion of Jesus Christ, otherwise it would be absolutely worthless to me, and it would be worthless to all other men, so far as religion is concerned. If it is not in my soul, if I had not received it in my heart, or if I did not believe it with all my might, mind and strength and be it, live it, and keep it secure in my heart all the days of my life—week days as well as days of rest, in secret as well as in public, at home and abroad, everywhere the same; then the religion of Christ, the religion of well doing, the religion of righteousness, the religion of purity, the religion of kindliness, faith, salvation from temporal sins, and salvation and exaltation in the kingdom of our God—my religion would not be the gospel of the Son of God to me. This is "Mormonism;" and that is the kind of religion we want to teach to our children. We must receive it ourselves and teach it from our hearts to their hearts and from our affections to their affections, and we can then inspire them because of our own faith and our own faithfulness and convictions of the Church.

These organizations of young men and women are intended to help the wayward, giddy and wild; to work with those who are at large in the world, who are not subject to any organization at all; to gather them in; hunt them up, and get hold of them by love, by kindness, by the spirit of salvation, the spirit to bring them to a knowledge of the truth, that they may find the way of life and walk in it; that they may have light everlasting within themselves through the Spirit of God.

All truth cometh from the Lord. He is the fountain of truth; or in other words, he is the everlasting spring of life and truth, and from him cometh all knowledge, all wisdom, all virtue and all power. When I read books that are scattered broadcast through the world, throwing discredit upon words and teachings and doctrines of the Lord Jesus Christ, saying that some of the ideas Jesus uttered, truths that he promulgated, have been enunciated before by the ancient philosophers among the heathen nations of the world, I want to tell you that there is not a heathen philosopher that ever lived in all the world from the beginning, that had a truth or enunciated a principle of God's truth that did not receive it from the fountain head, from God himself. God knew the truth before any heathen philosopher. No man has received intelligence but has had to come to the Fountain Head. He may not have known it, may not have realized the source of his knowledge, but it came from God. God taught the first truth that was ever taught to man. The Lord has bestowed his truth upon the earth from generation to generation and he has visited the people in various ways, from age to age, according to the nearness with which he could draw them to himself. He has raised up philosophers among them, teachers of men, to set the example, and to develop the mind and understanding of the human race in all nations of the world. God did it, but the world do not give credit to God, but give it to men, to heathen philosophers. They give credit to them. I give it to God. And I tell you God knew the truth before they did, and through revelation they got it. If they received light at all they had it from God, just as Columbus got it from the Lord. What inspired Columbus with the spirit of unrest, the spirit of longing, with an intense desire that he could not overcome, to seek out this western hemisphere? Brethren and sisters, I acknowledge God's hand in it. It was inspiration that seized Columbus, and he was moved by it. But men do not acknowledge God's hand in it. In the Book of Mormon, we learn it was God's Spirit working upon him. The Lord moved upon Columbus and he could not restrain the influence that was upon him until he had accomplished the work. The same may be said of any intelligent man that has enlightened humanity, from the earliest ages down to the present time.

Let me say to you, my fellow workers in the cause of Zion, do not forget to acknowledge the band of God in all things. He told the Jews that he had other sheep that were not of that fold, and that he must visit them. He did visit them. He came to the sheep of the fold occupying this continent, dwelling here unknown to the Jews, and he revealed the principles of the gospel to them. And when he visited them, he said, "Ye are they of whom I said, Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." (III Nephi 15:21.)

Read in the Doctrine and Covenants of a parable in which the kingdom of God is likened unto a man with twelve servants working in his field, each having his portion called an allotment. The Lord visited the first and taught him the truth and cheered him up by his presence and voice and counsel; then he visited the second, then the third and so on until the twelfth, each in his time, each in his season, each according to his necessities. (Doc. and Cov. 88: 51-63.)