My brethren and sisters, this has been a most impressive conference. I think in my experience I have never attended one more impressive, and it has been my privilege to attend conferences since the passing of President Woodruff when vacancies have been filled in the presidency of the Church. I remember President Woodruff well. He knew me by my first name, largely because my father attended him professionally, and it was my privilege to drive my father from place to place as a boy. So, I say, in my recollection I never remember a more impressive conference.

GOSPEL BRINGS PEACE

It's a great pleasure and a privilege and a blessing to be here and to feel the warmth of the hearts of the people. Although there has been a shadow of sorrow in all of our hearts, yet there has been that peace that comes to the human soul through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are all striving for peace, and we wonder how it's going to come. I sometimes think we look upon it as sort of a tangible thing and perhaps there are some tangible aspects to it, but in a larger sense, it is most intangible. I think we were conscious of that yesterday as we assembled in this room paying our respects and showing our love to our great leader. As we sat here, I couldn't help but think, here we are evidencing peace in the world. Our hearts are free from strife, that's what peace means. We have nothing but love and kindness one toward another, and regardless of creed, regardless of color, and there were many here yesterday who are not of the white race, we were all dedicated to one purpose and that was peace and love. It's true, that was inspired by our leader, but leaders can do that, and they will do it, and peace will come through the inspiration of men whom God will raise up and who will establish in the hearts of men, because of their righteous lives, these great concepts of peace.

PEACE THROUGH SUFFERING

And then, too, we had another most striking experience as we sat here. We listened to that lovely blind woman, Sister Jones, pay her tribute, one from whom the beauties of this world have been shut out—I mean the tangible beauties. I couldn't help thinking of it as I saw those beautiful flowers. She couldn't see them, she can't see the shadows of a fleeting day or the rising sun, or these delicate lilies. Tennyson, you know, it was, as he was going along one time, seeing a little flower in a crannied wall, said:

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

This lovely girl can't see those flowers. But she does see something, my brothers and sisters, beyond what you and I see. She has a perception of beauty; she has peace in her soul; she has something Christ-like that God exemplified, and it brings home the fact that there is great wisdom in the experience of suffering and sorrow, and it's in that suffering and sorrow that we acquire these divine attributes. God understood it; he didn't let the cup pass when Jesus supplicated that it might. He knew. And so, some have to go through life missing some of the tangible things you and I enjoy, but partaking of some of those intangibles that transcend them all. We had a great lesson here yesterday, not only of how peace may come into the human soul, but also of how men and women exemplify the teachings of our Lord and Savior and the great virtues of love and sacrifice.

STORY OF BLIND WOMAN

I remember many years ago of reading, I believe it was in the old Juvenile Instructor, a beautiful story, and it has stayed with me all these years. It is said that on one occasion President Young left his home, over where the Bee Hive House stands, and started down State Street. There used to be a stream of water, part of City Creek, flow down the street, and the sidewalk, such as it was, or the trail, meandered along this ditch; and as President Young was making his way down he saw coming up the trail an old lady with a cane, following her way along the ditch. She couldn't see. In the goodness of his heart President Young stopped and, taking her by the hand, he said, "My dear sister, God bless you. Let the light of the gospel be the light that shines beyond the rays of the setting sun." It's the gospel of Christ that brings peace to all of us and as was said here, appropriately, the reason that we could feel it so impressively yesterday is because we were paying tribute to one who had exemplified these divine virtues.

EXERCISE OF AGENCY

And so, brethren and sisters, there is hope for all of us. There's hope for this suffering world. President Clark called our attention last night to one very potent thing, however: namely, that we can lose our agency. We have the agency to make these things possible; we also have the agency to lose them because God, in giving his promises to his children, has not taken it from us. We have the right to do, or not to do, and we have the right to establish righteousness. We have the will to do it or the will not to do it. Therein lies the great danger, and if we fail, or if failure occurs, it will be because of us who know better. But we have great hope as we visualize what has happened these last hundred years. Someone has said that one man alone with a message of peace and righteousness can revolutionize the world. The Prophet Joseph stood alone a hundred and twenty years ago. Today we number 1,100,000 people, and that's not counting the hundreds and thousands who have passed to the other side. It merely illustrates what one man alone can do. Jesus stood alone when he stood before Pilate, even Peter had deserted him—he knew him not, he said  Matt. 26:70,72,74 and thus Jesus stood alone. One man alone can give hope and life and vitality to this world. And one man stood alone a hundred and twenty years ago and today we're the recipients of his great message of eternal truth.

I bear you my testimony, my brothers and sisters, again thanking my Heavenly Father for the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ and for the peace that it brings to the human soul, and I do it in the name of Jesus. Amen.