I feel as though I would like to express a few of the sentiments and feelings that are passing in my mind. We have had much preaching, exhortation, correction, and reproof, and some might say a great deal of chastisement; though I call chastisement neither more nor less than reproof or correction. When we are corrected by our leaders, it is to set us right, to show us the wrong course, and induce us to pursue the right one. If I do wrong, if I get astray, it is perfectly right that some one should correct me; and when I am corrected, it is not right for me to justify myself; for, if I do, I sustain the course of an incorrect purpose. When I am corrected, it is my duty to listen, to reform, and walk in the straight and narrow way. If we will not learn by precept nor by example, we have to learn by the things we suffer. Is it not better for people to learn by correction than by bitter experience? The old saying is, that "Experience is a hard master."
There
are some who are not so much benefitted by preaching as they might be, because
they do not remember and apply what they hear. It has a pleasing effect upon
the ear, like a tune well played upon a musical instrument, but makes so little
of an impression, that it cannot be repeated by the hearer. The word does not
enter the ear and proceed to the heart, which is the place of deposit. There
the word of God should be deposited, which would be at the seat of government
in the human form. We each have a seat of government within us, because we are
incorporated bodies. Every man that comes into this world is an independent
being, upon the same principle that our Father and our God is independent, only
He is independent to a greater degree, being further advanced in perfection. He
came here, and helped to organize this earth; and having had an experience in
organizing earths before He came here, He was capable, and had every principle
necessary to create this earth and fill it with inhabitants. If them had not been
a seat of government in Him, and all those powers and faculties necessary to
propagate the human species, He never could have done that work. We are His
sons and daughters.
Heber
C. Kimball, "Utility of Correction—Necessity of Living Our Religion—Our
Own Character Affecting Posterity—The Saints Blessed Above All Other
People—Result of Rebellion Against Authority, Etc.," June 7, 1857, Journal
of Discourses, 26 vols. (Liverpool: S.W. Richards, 1857), 4:334
