"It is necessary to hope, though hope should be always deluded; and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction."
And, again, all our environments, as children, as husbands or wives, as parents, as brothers or sisters, as rulers, as ruled, as king or shepherd, as neighbors, as citizens, call our our affections; and, so is love developed.
The attributes of faith, hope and love, or, as Wagner has it, in his "Simple Life," confidence, hope and kindness, are, moreover, ever spoken of by inspired writers as those most to be cultivated.
And, too, these qualities and the means for their exercise are universal. They obtain alike with all classes, in all ages of the world.
Man, therefore, is placed upon the earth to develop spiritually, in faith, in hope and in love, but most of all, as is consonant with the part that sentiment played in the inception of the Gospel, in love. Accordingly, Paul exclaims:
"And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."[[45]]
Further and final evidence as to the importance of the cultivation of love is found in the reply of the Savior to the lawyer who asked, "Master, which is the great commandment in the law?" for, "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."[[46]]
That there is a reason, and what the reason is, for the paramount importance of the cultivation of the attributes of faith, hope and love in the present stage of our progress, is disclosed in a remarkable passage in the Book of Mormon. It reads as follows:
"Behold, I will show unto them that faith, hope and charity, bringeth unto me—the fountain of all righteousness. And I, Moroni, having heard these words, was comforted, and said, O Lord, thy righteous will be done, for I know that thou workest unto the children of men according to their faith; for the brother of Jared said unto the mountain Zerin, remove, and it was removed. And if he had not had faith, it would not have moved; wherefore thou workest after men have faith, for thus didst thou manifest thyself unto thy disciples. For after they had faith, and did speak in thy name, thou didst show thyself unto them in great power.
"And I also remember that thou hast said that thou hast prepared a house for man; yea, even among the mansions of thy Father, in which man might have more excellent hope; wherefore man must hope, or he cannot receive an inheritance in the place which thou hast prepared.