Commenting on J. Reuben Clark’s (commendable) disdain for “quick baptisms” of superficial converts, D. Michael Quinn wrote:
When someone told him in 1943 that non-members of the Church had been included in the canning operations of Welfare Square as a missionary activity to make non-Mormons “feel good toward us,” President Clark replied, “We are not here to make people feel good. We are here to do our work and preach the gospel” (Marion G. Romney Diary, 29 October 1943). He also opposed superficial conversions. A non-Mormon friend in Salt Lake City wrote that his member children wanted him to join the Church and that he had attended many Church services with his children, had grown very fond of the ward bishop, had met several times with the missionaries, had read “a good deal” of the Book of Mormon, but had not decided whether he should join the Church. President Clark’s reply was immediate:
Do not join our Church merely to please your son. Do not join unless you have what we call a testimony, which is a burning realization that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that through him the Lord restored the Gospel and His Priesthood, and that this work was divinely set up and is divinely led. If you were to join on any other basis than this, unhappiness would be your lot, and things probably would arise which would result in your separation from the Church, which would be unsatisfactory for you and for us (JRC to A*** H******, 15 September 1948).
To others, this might have seemed like a “golden opportunity” to urge the man to follow his inclinations toward joining the Church, but J. Reuben Clark’s lifelong disdain for emotionalism and quick decisions could not be quenched even at the prospect of a ready convert. (D. Michael Quinn, J. Reuben Clark: The Church Years [Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1983], 148-49)
Would that more Church leaders, both locally and globally, would embrace this attitude than the "dunk them ASAP!" attitude one finds, especially among all too many mission presidents.
