I feel, my brethren and sisters, to be at one with that which has been accomplished here this day to honor those who have been released from their callings and to hail those who have received a new responsibility.

I feel grateful to the First Presidency for the privilege of coming to this conference. I need the strength, I need the association of the brethren, and I need to look into your faces and to see there the love of the gospel and the faith manifested, which enables me to go forth in my responsibility to a greater degree.

I have felt since the opening and challenging remarks of President McKay that if a phrase could be given to set the theme of this conference, and I am not trying to set it, but to me it is something like this, that he should put on the whole armor of God  Eph. 6:11 and be prepared for the important days that are ahead of us. And if perchance we have not put on the whole armor, then we non have this challenge again from our prophet that we place upon ourselves a renewed determination to fortify ourselves with the powers and the callings that have come to us to go forth and accomplish the work which the Lord has given us to do.

I am grateful for the faith and prayers of the members, for the authority of the priesthood that has extended peace in the earth, at least to the extent that we now feel it, so that the great work which the Lord has caused to be restored upon the earth can continue. I felt in the organization of Berlin Stake that the power of the priesthood in a measure could forestall and prevent the unjust dominion that could prevent the work of God going forth in these ancient lands of Europe and to be there and to feel of this spirit and power was indeed a great experience.

The work continues to progress in Europe to keep pace with the rest of the Church, and for this we are grateful. Many thousands of wonderful people are accepting the gospel in these ancient lands. Many very prominent men and women are answering the call that has come to them through the efforts of the missionaries, and in the gospel net we are finding men of great influence and importance as well as those of the ordinary walks of life.

As I looked into the face of a very renowned architect from Munich just a few days ago, a man who has gained world recognition in papers that he has prepared in his profession, I said, "I would ask you but one question," (he has been a member of the Church only a month,) "do you believe that God actually talked to the Prophet Joseph Smith and that he introduced to him his Son?" He said, "Yes, I believe that with all my heart, and I believe more, and I want to serve."

This is typical of the many thousands who are accepting the gospel and who want to serve their Heavenly Father.

We are living in a tremendous age, my brethren and sisters. It is a day of great progress, of change, of rapid advance. The very structure of our civilization, social, political, commercial, moral, and religious is greatly affected by that which persists before our eyes this day. There can be no question that a new era has dawned upon our planet. Means of travel, trade, association, and intercommunication between countries even comparatively unknown, is before us. But while in almost every field of science, every art is being developed while the mind is awakened to new thought, yet religious knowledge in the world is at a standstill. The creed of the fathers cast in the mold of other ages shows no progress to match the onward strides of man.

I am indebted to Brother Ezra Taft Benson for an article which he sent to me, which typifies in measure the failure of the powers of Christendom to attract their members to the churches in Europe. In Denmark, for example, less than one-half of one percent of the population retains any active church connection. Sweden is a little better. In one Swedish parish, says Russell Kirk, in a recent article in The National Review, a Swedish minister, after preaching for five years, found only his immediate friends and family attending regularly. The Church of England, though by law established, obtains the active participation of only five percent of the English population. The English dissenting churches are in a worse plight. Continuing this article, Russell Kirk has this to say:

"What we are seeing rather is the dropping away of most people into a state of apathy and disbelief, though not even the fervent disbelief of the village atheist. A vague feeling that Christianity does not profit a man in any material way, and a vaguer conviction that somehow religion is unscientific, seem to be the approximate causes of this phenomena. Probably there is less religious belief and less influence of churches upon the civil-social order and upon the person than in any other period in the history of Europe."

I suppose in America we find this same condition. Yet as we declare it, and as fully predicted by the prophets of God, the Spirit of God has been poured out upon all mankind. As proof of this I call your attention to the tremendous strides that have been made in the world since the restoration of the gospel.

I remember as a young man sending to a renowned encyclopedic organization a request for information of all advancements that had been made since the year 1820 in the fields of science, and within a matter of several months, I was flooded with information from them to indicate the tremendous manner in which the Spirit of God has rested upon people since the day that Joseph Smith walked into the Sacred Grove.

How tremendously in keeping with his will that such enlightenment upon man should come as the result of a restoration of truth and the very presence of God, but that which man participates in today in a scientific way is only the minute, is only a fragmentary part of the light that has shone into the darkness, that brings to man by divine intervention the truths of the eternal law of salvation, which if appropriated can lead to eternal life in the presence of God.

I have always felt impressed by an article which appeared in one of our Church publications some few years ago that told of a newspaper reporter who left New York to go to Nauvoo, Illinois, in the year 1842, and after spending considerable time there and after meeting the Prophet Joseph Smith, he returned to New York to have published in the New York Herald in that year this article concerning Joseph Smith. I quote:

"Joseph Smith is undoubtedly one of the greatest characters of the age. In the present infidel, irreligious, ideological age of the world, some such singular prophet as Joseph Smith is required to preserve the principles of faith and to plant some new germs of civilization that will come to maturity in the years that are ahead, while modern philosophy which believes in nothing but what you can touch is overspreading the Atlantic States in America, Joseph Smith is creating a spiritual system combined also with morals and industry that will change the destiny of the race" (George Q. Cannon, Life of Joseph Smith, p. 324).

Joseph Smith under the direction of God did establish this system; a system of divine truth made possible by divine bestowal from holy messengers and by revelations which provide guidance and direction, and this as revealed to Joseph Smith is for the specific purpose, as referred to in the Doctrine and Covenants, ". . . that every man might speak in the name of God the Lord, even the Savior of the world;

"That faith also might increase in the earth;

"That mine everlasting covenant might be established;

"That the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world, and before kings and rulers"  D&C 1:20-23

Obedient to the predictions of this day and age and by all of the holy prophets, it is not religious opinion which will cover the earth, nor knowledge from scientific advancement reaching into the hearts of every good man and woman, but it is faith, leading to the testimony and spiritual conviction of God that is needed, for God is truth and to know him is to know the truth. Never, I suppose, have there been so many brilliantly intellectual people upon the earth, judged by the known facts of the sciences and of human knowledge, and yet there is a tremendous lack of direction among mankind. Recently, Eric Johnston made the statement that ninety percent of all the scientists who ever lived are living today, and the total accumulation of scientific knowledge is doubling every ten years. and yet there is a tremendous lack of direction in spiritual things which undoubtedly is contributing to the failure of people to attend churches and to be benefitted by the teachings of their own faith.

Recently one of our inquiring thinkers, a noted American mental health leader, Dr. Karl Menninger, made this statement:

"Most people today live without purpose and without significance. They have no articulate philosophy. They do not live within any frame of reference."

It is obvious that the lack of direction lies principally in the failure of people to have a true understanding of God and his purposes. To get this it must come from the expressed will of God through a prophet, yes, a prophet here today upon the earth as the oracle of God, and not from concepts of a musty and deceptive antiquity, nor from a so-called age of reason imposed upon us because of scientific exploration.

Here, my brethren and sisters, is reality. Honest and good men must come to know this, must adjust to it, welcome it, and meet it as a friend and know that it is God's will. And for this reason these young men that President Moyle spoke of, and others with them, go to the ends of the earth to proclaim this great message, that is for the restoring of a knowledge and understanding of God and of the meaning and the purpose of life here upon the earth.

God has spoken to us. Let us listen to his oracles and have unveiled to us the realms of eternal life.

I cannot help saying a few words about the powers of unjust dominion. I have appreciated the remarks of Brother Mark E. Petersen concerning this, but there is an evil force that is contemporary with the powers of righteousness that will bring release and joy to the individual, and we see the power of this unrighteous dominion as it is now being brought to bear upon the peoples of subjected countries. I have witnessed it. I have looked into the faces of those who are being imposed with this force.

We had the experience in the organization of the Berlin Stake of placing in the high council of that stake a man who only a few weeks before had been with his wife in East Berlin. Upon a certain day he left East Berlin to go to West Berlin to visit friends, leaving his wife in their home. While he was visiting his friends, the barricade was erected, and he was unable to return to his wife, and she unable to come to him. Yet he accepted this calling and responsibility and said he felt that in the wisdom of God, things would be righted.

But we see here the effects of the unjust and unrighteous dominion upon the rights of the people.

I shook hands with a brother from East Berlin who had had an accident in his work, that is, I shook his left hand because he came to the Berlin Stake conference with an amputation of his right hand, and for this reason and this reason alone, he and his wife and his two children were in West Berlin caring for this injury, as I shook his hand he said, "I would gladly give even the other hand, if that had been necessary, to place my family and myself here under the protective custody of this part of Berlin."

I bear testimony, my brethren and sisters, to the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the lives of people, that it brings release to them, that it brings inward joy and peace, and I pray that the powers of righteousness will continue in the earth that the great work that is occurring in these ancient lands of Europe and in lands all over the world, may continue, that righteous men and women by the thousands may listen to the call of the gospel and come in and be numbered among the children of our Heavenly Father, and I bear my testimony to you of the truth of this message in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.