This is indeed the most humbling experience of my life, and I pray God to strengthen me in my humility, that I may give utterance to what I have to say under the direction of God's inspiration.

SEVENTEENTH WARD ASSOCIATIONS

The kindest, the most generous, the most appreciative, the most considerate, the most forgiving, the most loving neighbor I have ever known has passed on. His mortal remains lie here within a stone's throw of where he was born. North West Temple extends from South Temple on the south to First North on the north.

From my early childhood to my early manhood I lived in that area. No better people ever lived than lived within those two blocks on West Temple during that period of my life. No greater, no sweeter, no kinder neighbors ever lived than lived there.

At the head of the street on the south was the home of this man of God. At the head of the street on the north was one of the homes of his wonderful father. Their homes were properly placed on that street of good neighbors. Since the day of his birth until his passing, this man of God traveled a million miles or more abroad in the earth in doing good.

He loved the people in the old Seventeenth Ward, but he had so much love that he could not spend it all in that small area, and so God called him from the Seventeenth Ward and gave him to the world, and he went about the world among all nations giving his love and the love of God to his fellow men.

FRIENDS IN SOUTH PACIFIC

I journeyed with him to New Zealand in 1938. I know how the people of the Pacific loved him, and he loved them. When the message from Tonga was read by President McKay I was reminded that on my first visit to Tonga about three and a half years ago, I called at the office of the Prime Minister, Mr. Ata. The first thing Mr. Ata asked me was, "How is my good friend, George Albert Smith?" He said, "I have never met a grander man in all my life than that man."

When I called on the crown prince, the Honorable Tungi, he brought from the drawer of his desk an Improvement Era which he had just received from President Smith.

In all the islands of the sea he is loved and revered, and on his last visit to Hawaii during the centennial of that mission, in his last testimony to those people, he said, "It is an honor to have my name numbered among yours upon the membership records of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

GOOD IN EVERY ONE

All those million miles which he traveled during his lifetime were used in distributing love wherever he went. Only a few weeks ago I went to the hospital to inquire about his health. On hearing that I was out in the hall he sent for me to come in, and when I went in, I walked up to his bedside and he reached out and took me by the hand, and gripping my hand firmly he said. "Young man, remember all the days of your life that you can find good in everyone if you will but look for it." The last message, the last instruction to me—"Remember always you can find good in everyone if you will but look for it."

He loved everyone because he could see the good within them. He did not look upon sin with the least degree of allowance  D&C 1:31 but he loved the sinner because he knew that God was love  1 Jn. 4:8 and that it is God's love that regenerates human souls and may, by that process, transform the sinner into a saint.

Maybe there are sinners who mistook his love for respect. He didn't respect the sinner, but he loved him. I am sure that love found response in the hearts and in the lives of those whom he loved.

AN APPROACHABLE MAN

I have never met in all my life a more approachable man. I never hesitated to go to him for confession and for counsel, and I always received that for which I went, whether it was forgiveness of shortcomings, or counsel which I would need in the work to which I have been called and to which he ordained me and set me apart.

Truly he forgave all men. He was aware in all of his life of the commandment of God: God will forgive whom he will forgive. As for us, we must forgive all men  D&C 64:10 He could do that, and then refer the matter to God. As he forgave I am sure he forgot. When one who forgives can forget, then truly that man is an unusual man, indeed a man of God!

When he moved from the Seventeenth Ward, he just left the geographical area. He never left his neighbors. I read a letter from a man who was in the army of occupation in Germany following the first war. He was a Seventeenth Warder, and he said in that letter, "While I was on furlough in Italy, President George Albert Smith came to Coblentz to see me." He always knew where his neighbors were, and he was always concerned with their well-being.

When he left New Zealand for Australia in 1938—he spent a month in Australia—and when he came back he said, "I saw one of our good Seventeenth Ward neighbors way over in west Australia. He came down from the mining camps to see me." This man was a mining engineer.

I said, "How did he know that you were there so he could come down to see you?" And he said, "I sent him a telegram." That man had not lived in the ward for many years, but his neighbor knew where he was, and he sent for him to come down and see him.

PRESIDENT SMITH'S CREED

President George Albert Smith had a creed. To those of us who knew him, it is not necessary to read that creed because his life was the creed. All of us who knew him could have written his creed. What an achievement! What an accomplishment! To be able to write the creed of your fellow man by the life which he lived.

If it is possible that there is someone within the sound of my voice who didn't know this wonderful neighbor, who has not heard nor read his creed, I will take the time now to read it.

"I would be a friend to the friendless and find joy in ministering to the needs of the poor.

"I would visit the sick and the afflicted and inspire in them a desire for faith to be healed.

"I would teach the truth to the understanding and blessing of all mankind.

"I would seek out the erring and try to win him back to a righteous and a happy life.

"I would not seek to force people to live up to my ideals but rather love them into doing the thing that is right. I would live with the masses and help solve their problems that their earth life may be happy.

"I would avoid the publicity of high positions and discourage the flattery of thoughtless friends.

"I would not knowingly hurt the feelings of any, not even one who may have wronged me, but would seek to do him good and make him my friend.

"I would overcome the tendency to selfishness and jealousy and rejoice in the success of all the children of my Heavenly Father.

"I would not be an enemy to any living soul.

"Knowing that the Redeemer of mankind has offered to the world the only plan that will fully develop us and make us really happy here and hereafter I feel it not only a duty but a blessed privilege to disseminate this truth."

It would be easy for us to memorize this creed, my brothers and sisters and friends, because it can all be briefed into one word—love. That was his creed. And with what grandeur he has swept the threshold of heaven as he has passed with this, his creed! How his heart and soul and his virtue and strength went out to the distressed, to the unfortunate, even to the criminal. I am reminded that someone once touched the garment of the Master, and he felt virtue or strength go out from him  Matt. 9:20-22  Luke 8:43-48

Everyone in distress, everyone beset with illness or other adversity, whoever came within the presence of this son of God, drew virtue and strength from him. To be in his presence was to be healed, if not physically, then indeed spiritually.

HIS HEART WAS PURE

During the span of his life he was nigh unto death on several occasions. Many men more robust in health could not have survived the illnesses which beset him periodically during his life. But his strength was as the strength of ten because his heart was pure, and so he survived.

Men like this never die. He is an eternal being. God attracts the godly, and I am sure that the shortest journey this man of God ever made in all of his travels has been the journey which he has just taken. God is love  1 Jn. 4:8 George Albert Smith is love. He is godly. God has taken him unto himself.

I have loved his family. I have grown up with them. I have been at school with them. All I can say now to them and to all of us is we can't honor a life like this with words. They are not adequate. There is only one way to honor his virtue, his sweetness of character, his great qualities of love, and that is with our deeds. Let us walk in his footsteps, we who knew him. We know what he wanted of us. We must never let him down.

Let us all be a little more forgiving, a little more tender in our associations with each other, a little more considerate of one another, a little more generous of each other's feelings. Let us so honor him that when we come to die we may be saved and exalted in the celestial presence of God our Father, and in that presence we will find his noble and prophetic son, George Albert Smith.

God grant that that boon and blessing may be ours I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.