My brothers and sisters, fellow members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the only true Church on the face of the earth at this time:

The Lord has been good to me in giving me the physical strength to be with you this morning. I often facetiously say as long as you do not think with your heels, it does not make much difference what they do, it is only when the Lord or somebody begins to interfere with your head (laughter)—I am uncertain on that point, personally. But I am grateful to be with you to mingle my testimony with the testimony of those who have gone before, that this is the work of God, that we are doing his service, that we are working under his plan, that we are instructing the world in general, and ourselves in particular, in the principles of his gospel.

He said to the ancients on this continent, "I am the law"  3 Ne. 15:9 and such are his words. We need to look no further than to his words to get therefrom the guides and the principles which will lead us to eternal life. Time and time and time again, he said, sometimes involving the four principles, sometimes three of them, "I am the life, the light, the way, and the truth"  John 14:6 And such is his message to us. Such are the principles by which our lives are to be guided.

I renew to you this morning the testimony I have given to you for over a quarter of a century, I believe every conference, a testimony that God lives, that Jesus is his Son and is the Christ, a testimony that the Father and the Son appeared to the Prophet  JS—H 1:17 thus settling, so far as we are concerned, forever that the Father and the Son were personalities and that Jesus spoke truly when he said, ". . . he that hath seen me hath seen the Father"  John 14:9

My brothers and sisters, the way has been laid down for us. We have no choice and no necessity for anything beyond his words and the revelations of his mind and will which he makes known to his prophet, who is called, ordained and set apart, sustained by your vote to be the prophet, seer, and revelator of this Church. I renew again my testimony that the Savior with the Father came to the Prophet Joseph, that the Prophet and his associates through the assistance given to associates, set up this Church, the only true Church, as I have already said, that exists upon the face of the earth  D&C 1:30

How I wish we could carry this thought, this belief, this testimony in our hearts to the exclusion of all others. This is a time, nationally, when it happens that, so far as my memory goes, for the first time, the strictly religious problem has been thrown into the campaign. Be not disturbed. We are not concerned ecclesiastically. We have the truth. Ours is the priesthood. We are the ones whom God has set up under a system of government which he revealed, where we have one man standing at the head, sustained as I have already said, by your vote, as the prophet, seer, and revelator of the Lord to his people. No one else has any right to declare the word of the Lord to this people.

I sometimes hear of persons, little groups, who undertake to direct us along lines that they think would be useful, politically. It is time for us to take notice and act when our prophet, seer, and revelator tells us what to do. We are not bound by any small group.

What a glorious thing it is to belong to the Lord's Church. As I have already said, it was the Lord who said, "I am the, life, the light, the way, and the truth"  John 14:6 and who said to the people on this continent, "I am the law"  3 Ne. 15:9 which meant, of course, that by his atoning sacrifice he fulfilled all that the law of Moses contemplated and provided for, and he alone is the one to whom we look.

Never forget those words of his to Martha, when she said, ". . . I know that he [Lazarus] shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

Christ said to her, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead" (alluding, as I believe, to our ordinances for the dead) ". . . yet shall he live:

"And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die"  John 11:24-26

"And this is life eternal," said the Savior in the great prayer, "that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent"  John 17:3

And the great purposes of the Lord, the great purposes of the Father, were declared to Moses: ". . . this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man"  Moses 1:39

How can we, as members of this Church, forget that great principle? How can we fail to keep his commandments and to go forward as he has directed, for that will bring to us the immortality and eternal life which God promised. And I would like to say I was about to conclude, to the brethren of the Church, but unfortunately I fear I must include the sisters: someday, as a beginning to your transgression, you may have to determine whether a cigarette is worth more than what the Lord promised; someday, you will have to make the same determination about a drink of whiskey; someday, you may have to determine whether you prefer what the Lord has promised to an illicit date. You who have been through the temple of Almighty God, know your covenants, your obligations. Never forget them. Keep the commandments of the Lord.

Very early in his ministry, the Savior, in that great conversation between him and Nicodemus, said that the Father sent the Savior to redeem the world, not to condemn it  John 3:17 The Lord never condemns the individual, except on rare occasions. He condemns the sin. And I can never forget that the most scathing denunciation that I know of in our literature, scriptural or otherwise, is that denunciation which the Savior made, and which is recorded in the latter chapters of Matthew, against hypocrisy  Matt. 23:13 He leaves one almost with the persuasion that nothing is so bad as that.

And when you think what hypocrisy may do—lead you to following a life of falsehood, making you pretend to be what you are not, deceiving your fellow men, sometimes deceiving your wives and your children! But there is one whom you do not deceive, and that is Christ, our Lord. He knows all. Personally, I have felt that nobody need keep much of a record about me, except what I keep myself in my mind, which is a part of my spirit. I often question in my mind, whether it is going to require very many witnesses in addition to my own as to my wrongdoing, and I have frequently thought, in making funeral sermons—I wonder how many of us there are, who, if it became known that Jesus was out here at Wendover, and would be happy to see all who came to see him, Jesus our Lord, who knows all that we have done, all that we have thought, could read our minds as we would read a book—I wonder how many of us would have the courage to go out to Wendover and pay him a visit. And yet if we were not willing, had not the courage, it is because we have not lived and thought and believed as we should. To me, that is one great test of how well I am prepared to meet my Maker.

The Lord helps us. He will give of his own Spirit even as much as we are prepared to accept. "I am the way, the truth, the life, and the light  John 14:6 I am the law"  3 Ne. 15:9 said the Savior.

Let us try always to learn what the Lord wants. If we are living the kind of lives we should live, that I hope we do live, we will find that no question ever arises in our minds for determination as to whether or not we should do a good deed, take a good course. The question comes only when we are thinking of doing something we should not do. And on that point, may I say just a word. "Prayer is the soul's sincere desire." And in praying, no matter what our words may be, there will be in the back of our minds the real prayer, the real desire, and that will be controlling.

The Lord is merciful. He overlooks much. He has to. Think of his life, what he did, what he said. That is your guide. We sometimes think that the Savior lived in a Palestine that was free from trouble, that there were no murders, no robbings, no thievings. Have you ever wondered a little why it was that Peter on that last night in the Garden happened to be armed with a sword  John 18:10-11 His Master's and his own message had never been to fight in that way. The Savior said he would make families fight among themselves, that their real enemy sometimes would be father or mother  Matt. 10:34-37but I have always understood that to mean the warfare between right and wrong, the warfare between his sayings and the sayings of the world.

Do you think of the Savior as living in a Roman civilization with all of the transgressions, all of the temptations, all of the evils of that great civilization? Yet so it was. And yet you will find nothing in the New Testament of any evils the Savior ever did of the many existing in the Roman Empire. I do not remember any reference, allusion, or [p. 90] statement given in the New Testament showing that the Savior patronized the Roman circus or the great amphitheaters which almost crowded the Palestine in which he lived.

Taking the New Testament alone, you will gain little idea of the kind of life the Romans led in Palestine, the kind of life that the Christ condemned, and yet as I have already said, it has seemed to me that the one sin that the Savior condemned as much as any other was the sin of hypocrisy—the living of the double life, the life we let our friends and sometimes our wives believe, and the life we actually live.

I repeat what I have already said, we may think nobody knows of our hypocrisy. As a matter of fact, I doubt if that assumption can be true. Somebody does know. But the Lord also knows, and we make up the record here in our minds—that part of us which I think is part of our eternal souls. We know, and we will never forget.

May the Lord give us strength and power to overcome evil. May he give to us men the power to magnify our priesthood. May he give to us the knowledge that we hold in our hands through our priesthood and the exercise of faith, the most powerful force of which we have any knowledge. It transcends the forces of nature, as the Lord showed on more than one occasion. It is the force by which the worlds were made. It is at our command, if we so live that we are entitled to it. But it is my faith and my belief that the Lord never gives anyone faith, it being his gift, that will defeat his purposes.

And when we pray, as I have said to you on many occasions, I am sure, pray as he did in Gethsemane. And have you ever been struck with the thought that here was the Son praying to the Father to let the cup of crucifixion pass by, ". . . nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done"  Luke 22:42 A few days before in the temple, he had said, "Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour"  John 12:27

I have been struck with the fact that Deity himself, half mortal for the time, found himself asking that his destiny might be changed, but he finished his petition, "nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done."

In that spirit we should always approach our Heavenly Father in prayer. And when we go to our Heavenly Father for advice, let us not go to him with the request that he confirm us in our desires, but ask humbly and in full faith that he will give to us of our desires, no matter what they are or concerning whom they may be, that which accords with his will.

I am most grateful to be with you this morning, to mingle my voice with the voices of the other brethren who have testified to you during this conference. I have listened to you during the entire conference. I have enjoyed what has been said. I have regretted my absence. I am grateful that the Lord has permitted me to come this morning, and I thank President McKay for giving me the opportunity to say the few unpremeditated words I have said.

I pray the blessings of the Lord to be upon you and upon all of us. I pray the blessings of the Lord to be upon him, the prophet, seer, and revelator of the Church and the President thereof. I pray that we will give him the full measure of support that we have covenanted to give him when we sustained him by our uplifted hands. That is a marvelous covenant we make, and as we make it here, we bind the Church, for this is a constituent assembly speaking for the Church. God grant his blessings may be always with us, to help us, to build us up, to keep us in the straight and narrow path, even until the end of life, and may he enable us to bestow such an impress upon our families as will enable them in turn to follow his paths, never forgetting and applying strictly the great principle he announced, "I am the way, the truth, the life, and the light"  John 14:6 and as to this continent, "I am the law"  3 Ne. 15:9 to the end that we ourselves and our families after us, may be saved and exalted and reunited in the hereafter, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

As President Clark turned to leave the pulpit, he said,

"Let me tell a story. I remember when Sullivan and Kilrain were fighting a championship down in New Orleans, I believe it was, when I was a kid, in the 76th round, or thereabouts, word came back, as I remember, 'Kilrain is slightly disfigured, but still in the ring.'"