Wednesday, October 4, 2023

George H. Brimhall (former BYU President) on "Mormonism"

  

I can’t hope that any of you will ever think a tenth as much about what I shall say as I have thought in preparing it. I was to present to you this morning the Church of my choice. I have selected the characteristics that are not common with other churches. Some of them may be found in other churches, but they are not common to other churches.

 

First: It is linked to heaven by divine authority and it doesn’t need to have its history traced through the ages to prove its origin.

 

Second: It glorifies intelligence and declares that wilful ignorance is a bar to salvation.

 

Third: It holds sacred the free agency of man--
a. In giving to every individual the right to go to God.
b. In extending to its membership the encouragement to seek knowledge from all sources,
and
c. By declaring that all things shall be done by common consent.

 

Fourth: It provides for progress—eternal progress—through continuous revelation, through the explanation of scientific discovery as a part of God’s truth, through the adoption of what is superior though discovered by others. As instance: the adoption of the Scout system by the Church.

 

Fifth: It recognizes recreation as pleasing unto God. I believe we are the only people who have been not only permitted by authority, but commanded to re-create. It imposes implicit confidence in its young people. You may read the history of churches, but find if you can where the recreation has been turned over to the young people. It offers a field of ordinances activity that extends youthfulness into old age.

 

I sit in the Temple and I see more than a hundred people ready for the ordinances of that holy house. Here is a young couple to be married at the altar and I ask, “What visions are before them?” I see them full of youth—perfect youth. Youth in its full sense means physical strength, vigor, energy. Youth in its spiritual sense is measured by the faith, the hope, the love—there is love.

 

Besides this couple that are to be married for time and eternity that day sits another couple. There is no physical youth there—perhaps three-score years have passed away, but they are toe cause the wedding bells to ring in the spirit world at the end of that day and I have asked as I have looked into their faces and into the faces of the young couple, the one where the most physical youth is, “But in which couple is the most spiritual youth, the most faith, the most hope, the most love?” And I said, “There is youth brought back to old age and there is no old age in the midst of this ordinance which is characteristic alone of the Church I selected.” (George H. Brimhall, “The Church of My Choice,” in Long and Short Range Arrows [Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1934], 142-44)

 

 

Mormonism has been and is a spirit of inquiry. Truth seeking led Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith, to search the scriptures and then, following the direction of sacred writ, to seek God for information. For a hundred years the Mormon missionaries have passed on the call of the Savior—“Seek the truth.”

 

The spirit of inquiry is seen in full flight in Mormon literature:

 

“Yes, say what is truth, ‘Tis the brightest prize
To which mortals or Gods can aspire,
Go search in the depth where it glittering lies,
Or ascend in pursuit to the loftiest skies,
‘Tis an aim for the noblest desire.”

 

Chapel halls, temple walls and mountain cliffs echo the singing of the above tribute to Truth, in testimony that the Spirit of Mormonism is one of inquiry.

 

The Spirit of Mormonism is one of Industry: It cries out against an interpretation of scripture that makes labor a curse and its proclaims work to be a parent of human happiness. While it trusts in God, the spirit of Mormonism never leans upon the Lord; its heroism forbids leaving to Divinity that which can be done by humanity. “Do the best you can and leave the rest to the Lord,” said one of the Mormon prophets. Idleness is an iniquity that the spirit of Mormonism spurns, whether it be gilded with gold or clad in poverty.

 

“The idler shall not have place in the Church,” says the Book of Commandments.

 

With what fervor the Mormons sing the pioneer song:

 

“Come, come ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear,
But with joy went your way.”

 

And how fittingly the emblem, which has given to Utah the title of “Beehive State,” accords with this Spirit of Industry.

 

The Spirit of Mormonism Is One of Helpfulness: it urges getting for the sake of giving. To have simply for the sake of holding is repugnant to the spirit of this pioneer American religion. “Live and help” is its approved business policy.

 

No one with a close range with the Spirit of Mormonism can, with any degree of consistency, charge it with being mercenary. A century of its history points to its being almost ultra-generous. Its helpfulness extends to the ends of the earth, through its missionary system, and it reaches over into the realms of the world beyond, through its temple ordinances. If one doubts that helpfulness is woven into the Latter-day Saint life, let him listen to the Mormon children sing the chorus:

 

“Then scatter deeds of kindness,
Then scatter deeds of kindness,
Then scatter deeds of kindness,
for the reaping by and by.”

 

Onwardness is the most outstanding feature of the Spirit of Mormonism—Behind this characteristic stands the doctrine of Eternal Progression, providing for permanency of existence with constant change—Permanency plus Progress. In the light of this spirit the truth of today is brighter than the truth of yesterday and the fullness of the joy-cup of tomorrow will be more than its fullness of today.

 

Perhaps no other hymn is more often sung by the Morons than the one containing this couplet:

 

“Thus on to eternal perfection,
The honest and faithful will go.”

 

Let the visitor to Salt Lake City enter the Temple grounds, look at the little log cabin in the south-east corner and then up at the majestic “House of the Lord, forty years in building, with its eastern tower, surmounted by a gold-plated figure of an angel, facing the rising sun and holding a trumpet to his mouth;” then let our tourist go into the tabernacle, face the great organ and listen to ten thousand people singing:

 

“The morning breaks, the shadows flee,
Lo, Zion’s standard is unfurled;
The dawning of a brighter say
Majestic rises o’er the world.”

 

And then the sigh-see-er will have had an opportunity to see and feel something of the onwardness of the spirit of Mormonism. (“The Spirit of Mormonism,” 1930, in ibid., 144-46)

 

Why the Mormon Church? That’s a question.

 

First: From an intellectual point of view. (I am now talking to those who are skeptical about God, but who believe in religion as a social institution, a system, man-made, a machine for making men happy.) To such the Mormon Church is entitled to preference because:

 

1. Of the onward call of its theology,
2. Of the superiority of its organization,
3. Of the uplift of its activities.

 

Second: From a spiritual point of view those who believe in God believe that He has had a plan; believe that He has revealed that plan to men and made them prophets, made them men who could see history in advance. To that class this Church is entitled to choice consideration because:

 

1. It came into existence in fulfillment of divine promise;
2. It has fulfilled prophecy in its history;
3. It is now fulfilling prophecy.

 

Third: From an experience point of view, the point of view of thousands who lived and died in the Church and of thousands who are now living in it; the point of view of most of you and many, many others. My experience, the experience of multitudes, gives answer to the question: Why the Mormon Church? because:

1. The wider the wanders from the Church line of life the weaker I become.
2. The closer I cling to the Church the stronger I grow.
3. The harder I work in the Church the happier I am. (“Why the Mormon Church?,” May 10, 1926, in ibid., 147-48)

 

 

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