Are you bringing the figures, Bishop? I thought there were so many, perhaps they could not count them. I always question these figures.

Tonight, October 1, 1949, there are here in the Tabernacle, including the baptistry and the vestry, 10,082; in the Assembly Hall, 2,307; a total of 12,389. On April 1, 1949, (last conference), there were in attendance 12,392. I think we have the extra three here tonight, and so we're as many as were at our April meeting.

In October, 1948, we had 10,275 in attendance. The doorways and hallways are packed, the Assembly Hall is overflowing, many are on the outside unable to get in.

We are hoping that sometime, before too long a period goes by, we shall be able, somehow, to provide a hall that will seat all of you brethren that want to come.

POWER IN UNITY

Brethren: We have had a glorious meeting. The time is getting late. I am not going to say very much. I do want to repeat my theme song, which is brought to my mind every time I stand before this great audience of priesthood. If, brethren, you could only know what your power would be if you were really and truly united, you would not delay a day in reaching that unity.

Now, unity does not consist merely in words, or professions of loyalty; it consists in actual acts. We must see eye to eye, and we must act accordingly. Bishops and presidents of stakes cannot—and have unity in the Church—decide that they have a special situation which requires special treatment. There are the same basic passions, the same basic problems, everywhere in this broad land. They have been with men from the beginning. Now, there seems to be at the moment, or for the year, or for the years, a resurgence of the evil part or side of men, but there are no new passions, no new ambitions, no new greeds, no new thirsts for power, no new cruelties. It is all the same old story.

WAY TO HANDLE SIN

When we think that our present condition is something new and that we can tamper with it, when we think that we can approach it by some other means than have been proved effective in the past, I fear we may be fooling ourselves. Somebody says, I believe, that when you have a thorn the thing to do is grasp it, like this, not toy with it in your hands or you get hurt.

It is my belief that there is only one way to handle sin and that is to take it by the throat and throttle it. Now, I do not mean that you go around killing people; I do not mean that you should throw them out of the Church; I do not mean that you should be unkind, unsympathetic, uncharitable, but the Lord does not look upon sin with the least degree of allowance, though he has all charity for the individual sinner, whom he tries to win back.

I had thought before conference began that I might say something about the great council of heaven, the part Lucifer played in it  Moses 4:1-4 but we have handled Lucifer pretty roughly this conference; and the story of the grand council has been told two or three times. President Hunter gave us a very elaborate version of it today.

SATAN'S PLAN

To my mind, as I read the scriptures, the thing boils down rather simply. I do not know whether Satan was offering a new plan or whether he had offered it before, but it sounded as if he thought it was a new plan. Satan offered the Father to take over all the spirits in the great council and save them all. Nobody was going to be lost, and all he asked of the Father was that the Father abdicate. He did not use that word. Maybe it is not used up in heaven, but we know what it means down here. The Father was to turn all of his power over to Satan, was to disappear, get out of the picture.

The Son apparently had been organizing worlds before, interpreting the passage in the Book of Moses, where the Father said to Moses: "Worlds without number had He created; by His Only Begotten Son had He made them"  Moses 1:33

The Son proposed he would take it over and apparently do as he always had done, give all the power and the honor and the glory to the Father  Moses 4:2 There was no suggestion of abdication.

What Satan wanted, quite evidently, was the full possession, ownership, of this creation of spirits that is involved in the peopling of this earth; so he tried to get them by gift, and that being denied, he is following along and trying to get us through the commission of sin. If we sin sufficiently we become his subjects.

As I read the scriptures, Satan's plan required one of two things: Either the compulsion of the mind, the spirit, the intelligence of man, or else saving men in sin. I question whether the intelligence of man can be compelled. Certainly men cannot be saved in sin, because the laws of salvation and exaltation are rounded in righteousness, not in sin.

We grow only by the things we overcome, our failings that we put under foot. We climb up, get on top, one after the other of our failings, till in the end, if we are righteous living, all of our failings are under our feet, and that is what salvation and exaltation require.

CHASTITY

I thought that I might conclude the few remarks I want to make tonight, by some statements which I have written out, because I wanted to be fairly sure of what I said regarding chastity. And I want to say I approve of all that President McKay has said regarding my belief in the substantial purity of the great bulk of our people. But this devil is out amongst us, there is no question about it. It is just as real as though there was an army of invasion of mortal men. So what I have written has been written in broad terms, but I want you to understand that what I say as including my firm belief that the great bulk of our young people are clean.

The Ten Commandments contain two provisions I wish now specially to note: "Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife"  Ex. 20:14,17

It seems to me that the besetting sin today is sensuality, sex perversion, sex indulgence.

SEX DESIRE

There is some belief, too much I fear, that sex desire is planted in us solely for the pleasures of full gratification; that the begetting of children is only an unfortunate incident. The direct opposite is the fact. Sex desire was planted in us in order to be sure that bodies would be begotten to house the spirits; the pleasures of gratification of the desire is an incident, not the primary purpose of the desire.

Remembering that fact, many problems will disappear, particularly the one presented by these who seek full gratification without begetting children.

Our art, literature, drama, movies, television, music, the ads in magazines—in great part run to sex. It seems to have become the uppermost thought in many minds. It colors their whole lives. This is all wrong. A mind engrossed in sex is not good for much else.

UNCHASTITY TOO COMMON

Unchastity is too common. It is in our schools, from the graders up. It is in our business houses and industrial plants. It is too large a part of our ordinary social life.

Parents are grasping at straws in an effort to hold their children. The cry is raised that the Church needs a book on sex. But what should such a book tell? Already the schools have taught sex facts ad nauseam. All their teachings have but torn away the modesty that once clothed sex; their discussions tend to make, and sometimes seem to make, sex animals of our boys and girls. The teachings do little but arouse curiosity for experience. It is said these courses tell enough about the generation of human beings to enable the youth, largely, to escape parenthood. Books are written, courses are given about courtship and marriage. To what point? We have not too far to go to get to the heathenish abominations and practices of the pre-Christian and early Christian times, against which the Lord again and again lashed out to ancient Israel and to early Christians.

BE CHASTE

A word on chastity can be given in one sentence, two words: Be chaste! That tells everything. You do not need to know all the details of the reproduction processes in order to keep clean. Be chaste because God commanded it. That is all there is to it. "Thou shalt not commit adultery"  Ex. 20:14 said the Lord at Sinai, and he has drawn no fine distinctions such as some would like to draw between adultery and fornication. The Lord used the words interchangeably.

SEX IN MARRIAGE

As to sex in marriage, the necessary treatise on that for Latter-day Saints can be written in two sentences: Remember the prime purpose of sex desire is to beget children. Sex gratification must be had at that hazard. You husbands: be kind and considerate of your wives. They are not your property; they are not mere conveniences; they are your partners for time and eternity.

CULTIVATION OF MODESTY

If you would be chaste, as God has commanded, then avoid conduct and practices that arouse the passions. A wise and pure boy or girl, one that wishes to be clean, will not "pet," nor "neck," nor "love-play," nor practice any other undue physical familiarity, by whatever name known. At best, these are gross and provocative indiscretions; at worst they are the preludes to certain and, too frequently, planned transgressions. These are all uncleanly in the sight of the Lord. If youth will abandon these, if it will decently re-cloth itself, and cultivate modesty—a largely lost virtue—it will be a long way on the road to chastity, which will bring untarnished happiness here and eternal joy in the hereafter.

And what I say to youth, I say to you young married people who are said to be, in many cases, far too lax in your morals. What may unchaste parents expect from their children, except unchastity.

EVILS OF DIVORCE

And with all this unchastity comes the great evils of divorce which is increasing amongst us at a wholly undue rate. The Lord has made clear from the beginning that these things are not pleasing in his sight  Matt. 19:8

May the Lord bless us. May we be on guard. There is no such thing with us as transgressing today, confessing tomorrow, paying the price, and then transgressing the next day all over again. That is not the gospel of Jesus Christ.

God bless us and help us to guide the youth. Again I pay tribute to the youth, the clean youth, and the great bulk of them are, but this danger is amongst us. It will not do to think it, or hide our eyes to it. O, brethren, be a unit in fighting sin, in sustaining those who are placed in authority, from the highest to the lowest, in the Church. Be a unit in clinging to the fundamental principles of the gospel, that

God may bless us, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen.