Brethren and Sisters, there are times when silence would seem to be more appropriate than speech, when one is so overwhelmed that speech is no longer an adequate medium of expression, when one could wish that he could broadcast a message from his soul without opening his mouth.

Some years ago we took our little family down to the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. The children were young. We stood where thousands of you have stood, on Inspiration Point, and we saw with awe and wonder the depths, the distances, the majesty of that scene. We felt our littleness and insignificance

As we stood there absolutely speechless, with our arms around each other, little Mary slipped her hand in mine and said, "Daddy, don't you think we ought to pray?"

Looking out upon this great canyon of faces, and realizing that out beyond there are other thousands listening in, again one is smitten with a sense of littleness and insignificance, again it seems that prayer would be the only appropriate form of speech. A man may talk to God when he is afraid to talk to men. Would you join then in a continuation of the beautiful prayer that was offered in the invocation by President [Golden L.] Woolf, which expressed thanks and gratitude for our blessings? All of us are indebted to the past, and I am sure we could, with profit, join in prayer and thanksgiving to God for those who preceded us. All of us, like the mountain streams, depend for our volume and quality upon the springs and tributaries that lie far back in the hills.

Indeed some of us are aware this morning of sustenance from tributaries which have their source on the other side of the valley of life. We thank thee, our Father, for our ancestors. Many of us look back through five generations of Latter-day Saints. We think of them who were associated with the Prophet, of their trials and difficulties; their heartbreaking experiences in Kirtland and Nauvoo; their subsequent journeys across the plains with their ox teams or handcarts; and for some of them the memorable march of the Mormon Battalion. They established themselves in this desert land, and some of them were called by the Authorities of the Church to move again and go into even more rugged and for bidding areas extending from Mexico to Canada. We thank God for our great progenitors. With Nephi, we feel that to be born of goodly parents  1 Ne. 1:1 is one of heaven's choicest blessings.

If for a moment we become personal, it is not because our experiences and heritage are unique—they are but typical of the lives of Latter-day Saints—but we are thinking now of a father, willing all his life to lay everything upon the altar, sending boys on missions, building up new areas, struggling against the elements. We are thinking of a pioneer mother, a woman who somehow had the genius to inspire in the hearts of each of her seven sons and seven daughters a sense of their individual worth and who predicted for them blessings in the future predicated upon observance of law.

We are thinking too of our companions, and I am sure all of you brethren who are assembled and who are listening will join in a tribute to those who know us best, in our weaknesses, and still somehow contrive to bring out of us something of our potential worth; who pray and love us into being our better selves.

This speech would not now be made were it not for one of the choicest of the daughters of Israel. Her faith and loyalty and love were sail and chart and compass on life's voyage. O God, we thank thee for our companions. We are grateful, too, for the hallowing influence of children in the home. They hold us like an anchor in the storm. We think back when we knelt by their beds to nurse them through affliction, when we called on God to bless and restore them, and he heard us; we thank God for the influence of their lives upon us, and for the continuing dividends of their love and loyalty.

We thank God for the privilege that has been ours of working with the young people of the Church. The inspiring message of our beloved President about conditions in the world and the need for missionaries makes those of us who have had that experience feel, as I am sure these mission presidents here today must feel, how great it would be if there could be a hundred thousand of them. I am sure each mission could absorb all the missionaries that we now can send.

Thank God for the privilege of working with those young people descendants of pioneer stock, faithful, full of integrity and faith. They have meant so much to our lives.

Humbly we thank God for the priceless privilege that has been ours to associate with the men in the service, men who are willing to die for freedom and country, and have the courage to live the principles of the gospel. We have seen them coming back from bombing missions, kneeling in their battle dress and talking to God as few men talk. Thank God for the privilege of associating with the servicemen. God bless them.

May we, as we leave this conference, not forget them, but let a flood of letters go out to them, expressing our faith in them, letting them know that we are praying for them.

Thank God, too, for the great privilege of associating with the students in Brigham Young University, the inspiration that comes from those thousands of valiant young Latter-day Saints, fruits of the gospel, nourished and sustained by the blood of their pioneer ancestors. Truly they are thoroughbreds. We almost envy you young people who are listening in, and who are here today, envy you the future, dark and difficult though it may seem. Do not allow the huge events that are darkening the horizon to intimidate your souls, for God will make you equal to your time and task. The same one who led your parents will stand by you if you forsake him not. We envy you as you go forth with the improved methods and increased power to which reference has been made, and we say, with the poet,

Ye that have faith to look with fearless eyes
Beyond the tragedy of a world at strife,
And know that out of death and night shall rise
The dawn of ampler life:
Rejoice, whatever anguish rend the heart,
That God has given you the priceless dower
To live in these great times and have your part
That ye may tell your sons who see the light
In Freedom's crowning hour,
High in the heavens—their heritage to take—
"I saw the powers of darkness take their flight;
"I saw the morning break."

(Found on the body of an Australian soldier and credited to Sir Owen Seaman.)

Now, while it would be inappropriate to even mention the first personal pronoun in this speech, it would be ungrateful indeed if reference were not made to the gratitude that fills our hearts for the privilege that now is ours to associate with these great men, a privilege that must not be misread as merit. We love and support and honor them. We thank God for the privilege of sitting at the feet of greater men than Gamaliel of old who tutored Paul  Acts 22:3

God help us all that we may add to our faith, virtue, and to virtue, knowledge, and to knowledge, temperance, and to temperance, patience, and to patience, godliness, and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, charity  2 Pet. 1:5-8 God grant that these things may be in us and abound, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.