I have already indicated that our
youth are not children spiritually; they are well on toward the normal
spiritual maturity of the world. To treat them as children spiritually, as the
world might treat the same age group, is therefore and likewise an anachronism.
I say once more, there is scarcely a youth who comes through your seminary or
institute door who has not been the conscious beneficiary of spiritual
blessings or who has not seen the efficacy of prayer or who has not witnessed
the power of faith to heal the sick or who has not beheld spiritual outpourings
of which the world at large is today ignorant. You do not have to sneak up
behind this spiritually experienced youth and whisper religion in his ears; you
can come right out, face-to-face, and talk with him. You do not need to
disguise religious truths with a cloak of worldly things; you can bring these
truths to him openly in their natural guise. Youth may prove to be not more
fearful of them than you are. There is no need for gradual approaches, for
“bedtime” stories, for coddling, for patronizing, or for any of the other
childish devices used in efforts to reach those spiritually inexperienced and
all but spiritually dead. (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., "The
Charted Course of the Church in Education," August 8, 1938)
