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

by Joseph F. Smith

QUALIFICATIONS OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS. Now we all need patience, forbearance, forgiveness, humility, charity, love unfeigned, devotion to the truth, abhorrence of sin and wickedness, rebellion and disobedience to the requirements of the gospel. These are the qualifications requisite to Latter-day Saints and to becoming Latter-day Saints and members in good standing in the Church of Jesus Christ and heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. No member in good standing in the Church will be drunken or riotous or profane or will take advantage of his brother or his neighbor, or will violate the principles of virtue and honor and righteousness. No member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in good standing will ever be chargeable with such offenses as these, because members will avoid these evils, and they will live above them. Then we have a mission in the world: each man, each woman, each child who has grown to understanding or to the years of accountability, ought to be an example to the world. They ought not only to be qualified to preach the truth, to bear testimony of the truth, but ought to live so that the very life they live, the very words they speak, their every action in life will be a sermon to the unwary and to the ignorant, teaching them goodness, purity, uprightness, faith in God and love for the human family.—Apr. C. R., 1916, pp. 6, 7.

PERFECTION IN OUR SPHERE. I sincerely hope that the spirit of the conference will abide with us, will go with us to our homes, and that we will be able to continue to build on the foundations of the gospel of the Son of God until we become perfect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect, according to the sphere and intelligence that we act in and possess. I do not expect that any of us will ever become in mortality quite so perfect as God is perfect; but in the spheres in which we are called to act, and according to the capacity and breadth of intelligence that we possess, in our sphere, and in the existence of the talent, the ability, and intelligence that God has given to us, we may become as perfect in our sphere as God is perfect in his higher and more exalted sphere. I believe that.—Apr. C. R., 1915, p. 140.

LET EVERY MAN LIVE TO BEAR CLOSEST INSPECTION. Let every man's life be so that his character will bear the closest inspection, and that it may be seen as an open book, so that he will have nothing to shrink from or be ashamed of. Let all men who are elevated to positions of trust in the Church live so that no man can point to their faults, because they will have no faults; so that no man can justly accuse them of wrongdoing, because they do no wrong; that no man can point out their defects as "human" and as "weak mortals," because they are living up to the principles of the gospel, and are not merely "weak human creatures," devoid of the Spirit of God and the power to live above sin. That is the way for all men to live in the kingdom of God.—Oct. C. R., 1906, pp. 9, 10.

NEED OF INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. It is not safe for men or women to conclude that because they have fulfilled carefully their public responsibilities they have done all that is required of them. Public requirements are changeable. Public demands vary with the times. Sometimes they are strict and sometimes they are very lax. Public sentiment becomes fickle and it is often indifferent to the conduct of individuals who take license from a public indifference to wrongdoing. Individual responsibility is more concerned with the duties which men owe to their God whose requirements are positive and constant. When men feel that they are ever under an All-seeing Eye, their conduct is measured in the strictest terms. They are not subject to lapses of public sentiment.

The first and highest standard of correct living is to be found in that individual responsibility which keeps men good for the truth's sake. It is not difficult for men who are true to themselves to be true to others. Men who honor God in their private lives do not need the restraint of public opinion which may not only be indifferent but positively wrong. It is by the individual responsibilities which men feel that they are able to place themselves on the right side of all public questions. Those who neglect the inner life are dependent upon public guidance which leads them into all sorts of inconsistencies.

To walk safely and steadfastly without leaning upon the arm of flesh is the individual duty of every Latter-day Saint. Such a duty becomes a responsibility which men owe to themselves and to their God. The Saints should study their responsibilities, both public and individual, and find out, if they can, just what they are.—Juvenile Instructor, December, 1909, Vol. 44, p. 519.

CONQUER OURSELVES FIRST. I feel very grateful for the excellent peace and spirit which has pervaded all our meetings. It is true we are all engaged in a warfare, and all of us should be valiant warriors in the cause in which we are engaged. Our first enemy we will find within ourselves. It is a good thing to overcome that enemy first and bring ourselves into subjection to the will of the Father, and into strict obedience to the principles of life and salvation which he has given to the world for the salvation of men. When we shall have conquered ourselves, it will be well for us to wage our war without, against false teachings, false doctrines, false customs, habits and ways, against error, unbelief, the follies of the world that are so prevalent, and against infidelity, and false science, under the name of science, and every other thing that strikes at the foundations of the principles set forth in the doctrine of Christ for the redemption of men and the salvation of their souls.—Oct. C. R., 1914, p. 128.

LET US CONQUER OURSELVES. Let us conquer ourselves, and then go to and conquer all the evil that we see around us, as far as we possibly can. And we will do it without using violence; we will do it without interfering with the agency of men or of women. We will do it by persuasion, by long-suffering, by patience, and by forgiveness and love unfeigned, by which we will win the hearts, the affections and the souls of the children of men to the truth as God has revealed it to us. We will never have peace, nor justice, nor truth, until we look to the only true fountain for it, and receive from the fountainhead.—Oct. C. R., 1906, p. 129.

CHARITY THE GREATEST PRINCIPLE. Charity, or love, is the greatest principle in existence. If we can lend a helping hand to the oppressed, if we can aid those who are despondent and in sorrow, if we can uplift and ameliorate the condition of mankind, it is our mission to do it, it is an essential part of our religion to do it.—Apr. C. R., 1918, p. 4.

LOOK FOR GOOD; NOT FOR EVIL. Change the focus of your view, and of your eye, from watching for evil to watching for that which is good, that which is pure, and leading and prompting those who err into that path which has no error in it, and that will not admit of mistakes. Look for good in men, and where they fail to possess it, try to build it up in them; try to increase the good in them; look for the good; build up the good; sustain the good; and speak as little about the evil as you possibly can. It does not do any good to magnify evil, to publish evil, or to promulgate it by tongue or pen. There is no good to be obtained by it. It is better to bury the evil and magnify the good, and prompt all men to forsake evil and learn to do good; and let our mission be to save mankind and to teach and guide in the path of righteousness, and not to sit as judges and pass judgment upon evil-doers, but rather to be saviors of men.—Apr. C. R., 1913, p. 8.