"President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
—Apr. C. R., 1904, p. 75.
FURTHER STATEMENT. We have announced in previous conferences, as it was announced by President Woodruff, as it was announced by President Snow, and as it was reannounced by me and my brethren and confirmed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, plural marriages have ceased in the Church. There isn't a man today in this Church or anywhere else, outside of it, who has authority to solemnize a plural marriage—not one! There is no man or woman in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who is authorized to contract a plural marriage. It is not permitted, and we have been endeavoring to the utmost of our ability to prevent men from being led by some designing person into an unfortunate condition that is forbidden by the conferences, and by the voice of the Church, a condition that has to some extent, at least, brought reproach upon the people. I want to say that we have been doing all in our power to prevent it or to stop it; and in order that we might do this, we have been seeking, to our utmost, to find the men who have been the agents and the cause of leading people into it. We find it very difficult to trace them but when we do find them, and can prove it upon them, we will deal with them as we have dealt with others that we have been able to find.—Apr. C. R., 1911, p. 8.
MARRIAGE AND LARGE FAMILIES DESIRABLE. Bachelorhood and small families carry to the superficial mind the idea that they are desirable because they bring with them the minimum of responsibility. The spirit that shirks responsibility shirks labor. Idleness and pleasure take the place of industry and strenuous effort. The love of pleasure and of an easy life in turn make demands upon young men who refuse to look upon marriage and its consequent family enlargement as a sacred duty. The real fault lies with the young men. The license of the age leads them from paths of duty and responsibility to the pitfalls of a pleasure-loving world. Their sisters are the victims of neglect and of a great social and family wrong.
Women would marry if they could, and would accept cheerfully the responsibilities of family life. This loss to the home is a loss the nation must feel, as years go on. Time will vindicate the laws of God and the truth that individual human happiness is found in duty and not in pleasure and freedom from care.
The spirit of the world is contagious. We cannot live in the midst of such social conditions without suffering from the effects of their allurements. Our young people will be tempted to follow the example of the world about them. There is already a strong tendency to make sport of the obligations to marry. Pretexts of ambition are set up as an excuse to postpone marriage till some special object is attained. Some of our leading young men desire to complete first a course of study at home or abroad. Being natural leaders in society their example is dangerous and the excuse is one of questionable propriety. It were better far that many such young men never went to college than that the excuse of college life be made the reason for postponing marriage beyond the proper age.—Juvenile Instructor, Vol. 40, pp. 240, 241, April 15, 1905.
BE TRUE TO YOUR WIVES AND CHILDREN. And oh! my brethren, be true to your families, be true to your wives and children. Teach them the way of life. Do not allow them to get so far from you that they will become oblivious to you or to any principle of honor, purity or truth. Teach your children so that they cannot commit sin without violating their conscience, teach them the truth, that they may not depart from it. Bring them up in the way they should go, and when they get old they will not depart from it. If you will keep your boys close to your heart, within the clasp of your arms; if you will make them to feel that you love them, that you are their parents, that they are your children, and keep them near to you, they will not go very far from you, and they will not commit any very great sin. But it is when you turn them out of the home, turn them out of your affection—out into the darkness of the night into the society of the depraved or degraded; it is when they become tiresome to you, or you are tired of their innocent noise and prattle at home, and you say, "Go off somewhere else,"—it is this sort of treatment of your children that drives them from you, and helps to make criminals and infidels of them. You cannot afford to do this. How would I feel to enter into the kingdom of God—(if such a thing were possible) and see one of my children outside among the sorcerers, the whoremongers, and those who love and make a lie, and that because I have neglected my duty toward him or have not kept a proper restraint upon him? Do you think I shall be exalted in the kingdom of my God with this stain and blot upon my soul? I tell you, No! No man can get there until he atones for such crime as this—for it is a crime in the sight of God and man for a father to carelessly or wilfully neglect his children. This is my sentiment. Take care of your children. They are the hope of Israel, and upon them will rest by and by, responsibility of the bearing of the kingdom of God in the earth. The Lord bless them and keep them in the path of righteousness. I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen.—Apr. C. R., 1902, p. 87.
RESPECT THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS. I sincerely hope that we shall succeed in impressing upon the minds of the rising generation a sincere regard, not only for themselves, to keep themselves pure and unspotted from the world, but a sincere regard for the rights and privileges of others. Our children should be taught to respect not only their fathers and their mothers, and their brothers and sisters, but they should be taught to respect all mankind, and especially should they be instructed and taught and brought up to honor the aged and the infirm, the unfortunate and the poor, the needy, and those who lack the sympathies of mankind.
We too frequently see a disposition on the part of our children to make fun of the unfortunate. A poor cripple, or a poor weak-minded person comes along, and the boys will poke fun at him, and make unbecoming remarks about him. This is entirely wrong, and such a spirit as this should never be witnessed among the children of the Latter-day Saints. They ought to be taught better at home. They should be thoroughly taught better than this in our Sunday schools, and in all the schools, so far as that is concerned, that our children attend. Our children should be taught to venerate that which is holy, that which is sacred. They should venerate the name of God. They should hold in sacred veneration the name of the Son of God. They should not take Their holy names in vain; and they should also be taught to respect and venerate the temples of God, the places of worship of their fathers and mothers. Our children should be taught also that they have rights in the house of the Lord equal to their parents and equal to their neighbors or anybody else. It always pains me to see our little ones disturbed in this right. I witnessed a little circumstance in our meeting this afternoon in the aisle; a little child was sitting by its mother on a seat. Somebody came along and took the little child off its seat, and occupied the seat himself, leaving the child to stand. I want to say to you, my brethren and sisters, that that act sent a pang to my heart. I would not, for anything in the shape of remuneration of a worldly character, grieve the heart of a little child in the house of God, lest an impression should be left upon its mind that would make the house of worship a distasteful place, and it would prefer not to come within its walls, than to come and be offended.—Juvenile Instructor, Vol. 39, p. 657, Semi-Annual S. S. Conference, October 9, 1904.
MUTUAL TREATMENT OF HUSBAND, WIFE AND CHILDREN. Parents, in the first place, whether they do it or not, should love and respect each other, and treat each other with respectful decorum and kindly regard, all the time. The husband should treat his wife with the utmost courtesy and respect. The husband should never insult her; he should never speak slightly of her, but should always hold her in the highest esteem in the home, in the presence of their children. We do not always do it, perhaps; some of us, perhaps, do not do it at all. But nevertheless it is true that we ought to do it. The wife, also should treat the husband with the greatest respect and courtesy. Her words to him should not be keen and cutting and sarcastic. She should not pass slurs or insinuations at him. She should not nag him. She should not try to arouse his anger or make things unpleasant about the home. The wife should be a joy to her husband, and she should live and conduct herself at home so the home will be the most joyous, the most blessed place on earth to her husband. This should be the condition of the husband, wife, the father and the mother, within the sacred precinct of that holy place, the home. Then it will be easy for the parents to instill into the hearts of their children not only love for their fathers and their mothers, not only respect and courtesy towards their parents, but love and courtesy and deference between the children at home. The little brothers will respect their little sisters. The little boys will respect one another. The little girls will respect one another and the girls and boys will respect one another, and treat one another with that love, that deference and respect that should be observed in the home on the part of the little children. Then it will be easy for the Sunday school teacher to continue the training of the child under the hallowed influence of the Sabbath school; and the child will be tractable and easily led, because the foundation of a correct education has been laid in the heart and mind of the child at home. The teacher can then help the little children, brought up under these proper influences, to render respect and courtesy to all men and especially to the unfortunate, the aged and the infirm.—Apr. C. R., 1905, pp. 84-85.