FAITH
“Faith
is the eternal light that will dispel threatening clouds. Father in man is the
power that leads to brotherhood; faith in God, the ladder by which men climb
toward perfection.
“It
was faith that braved Columbus to sail on and on into the unknown horizon until
he discovered a new land. It was faith that brought to America the ‘Mayflower, freighted
with the destines of a continent.’
“It
was faith that impelled President Brigham Young and the Utah Pioneers to
establish permanent settlements in a forbidding, defiant western desert.
Notwithstanding the warnings of the desolation of the country, and the plea to
go on to more productive climes, there was that assurance in President Young’s
mind which had greater influence upon him than the trapper’s experience of productivity
and of monthly frosts, and more influential than the glowing description of the
California coast.
“Greater
than human judgment, towering above man’s experience, was the great leader’s
trust in God. In the hearts of the pioneers was a faith triumphant—a faith that
had nourished in them ‘confidence, hope, love, and a sentiment o the infinite
value of existence.’” (Home Memories of President David O. McKay, comp.
Llewelyn R. McKay [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1956], 207)