My beloved brethren and sisters: It is a sobering thought to face you wonderful people and hope to say some encouraging word. My own ministry has been one of an effort to encourage myself and others to do better the things we have to do as members of the Church.

It is almost twenty-five years since I first faced a congregation in this capacity. I have enjoyed those twenty-five years very much. There have been a few echoes come back that help has been rendered to people. When it comes, it is always satisfying.

I believe that without reserve I can bear testimony to every thought which has been delivered in this conference. My hope is that the testimony I undertake to bear to you today may be consonant with the spirit of those to which we have listened and that perchance some help may come from it.

We have heard several times the testimony that Jesus Christ actually is the Son of God, that he was tabernacled in the flesh, that he was resurrected from the dead to open up the privilege for all of us to return to the presence of God and stand judgment for our deeds. We have heard a humble prayer the Prophet Joseph Smith succeeded in opening the gates of heaven and having appear to him God the Father and Jesus Christ, through which a renewed testimony as to the individuality of the Father and the Son has come back to the earth.

We have heard also that the heavens were reopened; the Angel Moroni appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith and instructed him over many occasions in his duties and responsibilities, and further than that that the priesthood was restored through the instrumentality of heavenly beings.

Every one of those questions is a vital question to every member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I think that all of us here without doubt would testify as to the truth of all of these things. It is that testimony on which the vitality of the Church rests.

Not the least important of all of these events was the restoration of the priesthood, because the priesthood is the order in which the ordinances essential to exaltation in the kingdom of God, when properly observed and when our action justifies it, are performed. Without that priesthood the Church could not function. There is a difference between the gospel and the Church and the priesthood. Each has its function in our lives. The priesthood then becomes as important to us perhaps as any other phase of our existence.

We were told last night of the tremendous priesthood there is in the Church as compared with that of other religious groups. My experience and the checking that I have made over the last two or three years indicates to me that there would be on an average in the stakes of Zion about ten percent of the members of the stakes who bear the Melchizedek Priesthood. That is, when united with simple, pure faith, the greatest power that there is among men.

I represent one group of that priesthood, twenty odd thousand of them. It has been my effort, along with my colleagues over these twenty-five years, to stimulate that group to greater service and greater activity. Now, if it is real, and we testify that it is, that that priesthood has come back and that priesthood is a right to function on behalf of God, our Heavenly Father, in the ordinances essential to man's blessing and happiness, then we who accept it have a tremendous responsibility, and our problem is to magnify that calling.

I take it that every man who allows me to place my hands upon his head and ordain him to an office in that priesthood, promises actually or impliedly that he will do what may be within his power to magnify that calling. It is interesting indeed when we contemplate the possibilities of it.

To show you how near some of us are to the actual restoration of that Priesthood, let me tell you this: Joseph Smith received the Melchizedek Priesthood from Peter, James, and John. Joseph Smith ordained Joseph Young a seventy in the Melchizedek Priesthood. Joseph Young ordained my father at the age of seventeen as a seventy in the Melchizedek Priesthood. And my father ordained me an elder. There are others who are closer to it than that. But when we think that we are actually only a step or two away from an ordination by Peter, James, and John to the Prophet Joseph Smith, and when we think that that ordination makes us emissaries and representatives of God our Heavenly Father; when we further think that without the functioning of that priesthood we would never gain an exaltation in the kingdom of God, it is almost overwhelming, is it not?

Now, what do we do about it? I am as much interested in what we are going to do with it as the fact that we have it, and it means that we must work with ourselves and work with those people over whom we can have an influence. We cannot dream ourselves into exaltation. Dreams have no value unless they prove to be incentives for greater activity. It is fine to dream about the possibilities of life, but until we do something about it, those dreams are useless.

When we scan the statistics of the Church, we discover that there are too many, far too many of the people who have accepted this responsibility who do little or nothing about it. There is the group which should have our especial attention. The seventies of the Church are missionaries. Their field of labor is worldwide. Being worldwide, it includes their own households. It is the responsibility of every seventy, of every elder, and every high priest in the Church, first, to purify his own life, bringing it into harmony with the teachings of the gospel, that thereby he may gain the peace of mind and the happiness of which you have just heard, and then after doing that, he has the responsibility of extending his influence and his efforts beyond his own.

I feel that the primary responsibility of us individually is to bring into harmony himself and his household to the teachings of the principles of the gospel. Could we do that, what a wonderful power there would be in the priesthood which we bear.

If we understand our responsibilities, this priesthood is a thing of great power. We have been told today that Satan and his emissaries are rampant in the earth, walking up and down trying to deceive people. God knew that would happen when he placed man on the earth and when he expelled Satan from the heavens, but he, it seems to me, prepared a way to meet it, and that preparation is the life that justifies the receipt of the priesthood and the actual receipt of that priesthood through proper channels.

I believe that it is within the power of every man who holds the Melchizedek Priesthood to say, "Get thee behind me, Satan"  Luke 4:8 Whenever a man holding that priesthood yields to the temptations of the flesh and does the evil that is rampant in the earth, it is an admission on his part that he does not appreciate his priesthood, that he does not accompany the gift of that priesthood with a faith that makes it powerful.

You know and I know, you have had many illustrations of the effective use of the priesthood when it is combined with faith. Besides the healing of the sick, the gift which is not given to all people I admit but which comes only through the union of faith and priesthood, there are many other gracious and wonderful gifts that come to us through the exercise of this priesthood. It is such a tremendous power that if every one of the men who hold the Melchizedek Priesthood would fully magnify his calling, united with a perfect faith, we could almost control the activities of the society in which we live, nation-wide and international. The trouble is that we just do not do it. We do not do what we know we ought to do, and it is saddening to study our statistics and find how many people fail to appreciate this wonderful thing which came back to us in the most miraculous way.

Now, brethren, what are we going to do about it? We have it. It is our privilege to use it. Will we use it wisely or will we let it lie idle and rust out? I hope that we will be conscious of this tremendous responsibility because it is just that, that we will go away from this conference with a conscious responsibility of the priesthood, that when we go back we will bear testimony to our own and to others of the wonderful things that we have heard today, that we will bring our own lives as nearly as possible into complete harmony with the gospel of Jesus Christ, for we have been told today that to attain to the highest exaltation in the kingdom of God, to sit with God in the councils of heaven, enjoying the privileges of eternal progress and eternal increase, that eventually at least we will have to learn to obey all of the commandments of God.

Let us start about it now, brethren and sisters; let us do better tomorrow than we did yesterday or than we have done today, with all of our wonderful resolutions. Let us make tomorrow a better day.

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