As I have said before in the presence of our fellow laborers in the Council and in this General Priesthood Meeting, I feel in your presence and sense more keenly what John the Beloved Disciple felt when he said, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren"  1 Jn. 3:14 I say that tonight with all my heart, as I look upon this vast audience and sense, too, the number of additional groups meeting in various places named.

Several days ago I entered my study after a hard day's work, anticipating this moment. The general outline for this Conference had been prepared, outlined so far as those who should pray and those who should speak and when; we had asked the Lord to guide us regarding appropriate messages. On that particular evening, however, I had in mind this moment, and I was physically and mentally fatigued. I could not study, I could not get my mind on anything definite; so after a word of secret prayer I retired.

The next morning early I entered my study, reached for a little book that, contains what I call "literary nuggets," taken from Church works, from poets, writers such as Scott, Burns, Longfellow and others, and the thought came, "I believe I should like to take some of these nuggets and apply them to the priesthood of the Church." May I give you one or two tonight.

The first is in harmony with the great comparison made by President Clark of the army and the battle, and it is also, as I shall develop it, in harmony with the impressive remarks by President Richards. "The greatest battle of life is fought out within the silent chambers of the soul."

I ask you fellow workers to do again what undoubtedly you have done frequently, to sit down and commune with yourself. There is a battle on with you, and with me, every day. Fight out with yourself and decide upon your course of action regarding what your duty is first to your family. Of somebody getting into your life who will make an unhappiness or do some unhappiness in your home, as we have heard tonight.

Second, your duty to your quorum. You decide whether you owe your quorum anything, and see if you have strength enough to do it after you decide.

Third, you decide in that silent moment what your duty is to your Church.

And fourth, what you owe to your fellow men.

Associated on that page was this comment from one of the most sincere writers we have. It is in "The Simple Life." "First, be of your own country, your own city, your own home, your own Church, your own workshop. Then, if you can, set out from this to go beyond it. That is the plain and natural order, and a man must fortify himself with very valid reasons to arrive at reversing it. Each one is occupied with something else too often than what concerns him. He is absent from his post. He ignores his trade. That is what complicates life, and it would be so simple for each one to be about his own matters."

Decide where your duty is, even remembering that "the greatest battle of life is fought out within the silent chambers of your own soul."

The second that I picked out is this: "What e'er thou art, act well thy part." That, of course, applies to moral and lawful endeavors, and not to harmful or villainous actions. That influenced me fifty-four years ago when, as I have told some of you before, Peter G. Johnson and I were walking around Stirling Castle in Scotland. I was discouraged, I was just starting my first mission. I had been snubbed that day in tracting. I was homesick, and we walked around the Stirling Castle, really not doing our duty, and as we re-entered the town I saw a building, half-finished, and to my surprise, from the sidewalk I saw an inscription over the lintel of the front door, carved in stone. I said to Brother Johnson, "I want to go over and see what that is." I was not more than half way up the pathway leading to it, when that message struck me, carved there: "What e'er thou art, act well thy part." As I rejoined my companion and told him, do you know what man came into my mind first? The custodian at the University of Utah, from which I was just graduated. I realized that I had as great a respect for that man as I had for any professor in whose class I had sat. He acted well his part. I recalled how he helped us with the football suits, how he helped us with some of our lessons, for he was a university graduate himself. Humble but to this day I hold respect for him.

What are you? You are men who hold the priesthood of God, who hold divine authority to represent Deity in whatever position to which you have been assigned. When a man, an ordinary man is set apart in his community as a sheriff, there is something added to him. When a policeman on these streets, at the crossing, holds up his hand, you stop. There is something more about him than just an individual, there is the power that is given him. And so it is throughout life. No man can be given a position without being enhanced. It is a reality. So, too, is the power of the priesthood. It was so real in the days of Peter that Simon the Sorcerer, who was making money by his tricks, wanted to buy it, and offered the Apostles money: "Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost." Oh, what a denunciation Peter gave him! "Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money . . . For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity . . . Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee." And so strong was the denunciation that Simon said, "Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me"  Acts 8:19-20,22-24

There was no doubt in Simon's mind about the reality of the power of the Holy Ghost. "What e'er thou art, act well thy part." Are you a deacon, do the duties of a deacon well. Are you a teacher, do your work well. A priest watching over the Church, visiting with them—young men in this Church, if we could just do the duties of the teacher and of the priest, teaching people their duty, what a power for good to young men eighteen years of age, and nineteen. Not incorrigible, not recreants, but leaders. Brethren there is nothing in the world so powerful in guiding youth as to have them act well their parts in the priesthood.

In the same passage quoted by President Richards, the Lord says that many are called, but few are chosen, and why are they not chosen? Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson, that the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principle of righteousness. That they may be conferred upon us, it is true, but when men begin to exercise unrighteous dominion, then the power that is given to them is withdrawn, they are left to themselves to kick against the pricks, to fight against God  D&C 121:34-38

I can merely mention these. You work them out for yourself.

The third: "There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved"  Acts 4:12 It was a most dramatic scene when that sentence was uttered, and so you have this thought expressed as follows: The world's hope and destiny, the world's hope and destiny are centered in the Man of Galilee, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

In your moment when you are fighting out the battle of the day, will you look introspectively and see whether you really believe that? Paul Kane once asked this question: "Is Jesus only a legendary figure in history, a Saint to be painted in the stained glass of church windows, a sort of sacred fairy not to be approached and hardly to be mentioned by name, or is he still what he was when he was in the flesh, a reality, a man of like passions with ourselves, an elder brother, a guide, a counselor, a comforter, a great voice calling to us out of the past to live nobly, to guide bravely, and keep up our courage to the last."

What is he to you, my fellow laborer? When you kneel down to pray at night, do you feel his nearness, his personality hearing you, do you feel a power that operates perhaps as the radio or a greater power so that you feel that you are communing with him? You are not just saying your prayers, you are praying. Do you know tonight that he is real, our Savior, the Head of the Church? I know he is, and I know, too, that a whole nation right tonight is trying to teach a million boys that Christ is but a myth and there is no God.

And now I will just pass to the fourth. "If my life is of no value to my friends, it is of no value to me, said the Prophet Joseph when he was on the way to Carthage. You hold the priesthood to bless others; not for selfish purposes nor for selfish advancement, but to bless others, and under that gem, or nugget, I have these lines from the great writer Browning, who puts in the mouth of Paracelsus, who thought learning would bring him everything—success, knowledge, etc., and he was going to rise above his fellow men and become great, and maybe hand it down to them if they would let him. He ignored the advice of Festus, his friend, not to leave his fellowmen.

Paracelsus obtained his knowledge, but he learned the lesson of life. Finally, an old man, Paracelsus was in Greece, and Festus heard about him and rushed to his old friend's bedside. There, that great philosopher and scholar said, "Festus, I have found the secret of life!"

"What is it?" said Festus.

Paracelsus said, "There was a time when I was happy."

"And when was that?" said Festus. "All I hope depends upon that answer.

"When, but the time I vowed myself to man!"

"Great God," exclaimed Festus, "Thy judgments are inscrutable!"

"There is an answer to the longing of the human heart," continued Paracelsus, "and it is this: Live in all things outside yourself by love, and you will have joy. That was the life of God; it ought to be our life. In him it was perfect, but in all created things it is a lesson learned through difficulty.

Time has passed. I give you these nuggets and ask you to fight your fight daily, and say nothing that will hurt your wife, that will cause her tears, even though she might cause you provocation. Realize that those children are your eternal possessions, treasures of eternity. Do not dare to set an improper example towards them. You are men of the priesthood and you are leaders. Never let them hear a cross word. You should control yourself. He is a weak man who flies into a passion, whether he is working a machine or plowing or writing or whatever he may be doing in the home. A man of the priesthood should not fly into a passion. Learn to be dignified. You cannot picture Christ flying into a passion. Indignant with sin? Yes. Overturning the money changers when they insulted God and defiled the temple. Yes: But so dignified and noble that when he stands before Pilate he makes that leader say: "Behold, the man"  John 19:5

God bless you, our dear fellow laborers as you go back now to your homes in stakes and wards and magnify the Holy Priesthood, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.