You're from President Haley. Never appreciate the sun till it moves. I was thinking very much in the same vein that is told about by the preceding speakers. I was a little fearful when Guy got up and started to talk the way he did. I was afraid some new sin had broke out among us. But I'm glad it's still the same old one anyway. We're acquainted with it. I think along these lines very often. I see people...

reflecting in gratitude, and I see a good deal of self-satisfaction with myself. I've known this people now long enough that all our old clothes are worn out and we're dressed new. And I sat here today and Brother Timpson spoke of how fine-looking the people were. I thought, well, us people have never been more prosperous. We've never seen better times. People have never been as well-clad, as well-fed, and as well-housed as they are today.

None of it. And it surely would be pleasing in the eyes of God if we'd walk humbly. If there are any of you here that would learn from the precepts of others and not have to experience it all, if some of us can tell you that we live by the grace of God, then you ought to believe. Because this is a hard thing to learn. Very hard to learn. And there aren't any of us that are self-sufficient. I've seen men with their skills and their talents and their fierce labor.

try to perform and force the elements and the circumstances around their lives to yield, but they won't yield to a latter-day saint except by the grace of God. You ought to believe that. You'll yield to these Gentiles, these Gentiles, these bankers up here in Salt Lake City can make things yield by their sheer strength of power and influence, but you can't. You're not like them, and you never were and never will be. That is, most of you never were.

There's a different lineage and birthright. And you shouldn't try to imitate them and try to practice your lives after the manner and fashion that they practice because it won't yield for you. The only way that it will yield for a Latter-day Saint is by the grace of God. And when you get your blessings, your gratitude turns to the proper source and influence. There's been a youth here for us. We got our blessings from the devil. We went soliciting from him and obtained.

Where should our gratitude be placed? And where should our alms go? My long prayer. Do I go to the bank and borrow $500 to ask for $500 and get it? I'm like the kid with the candy. I thank him very graciously. It takes an awful lot of pressure. So I go away thankful to the banker. But I've learned that these things are by the grace of God. And that our lives and our breath and our existence A man holds his family by the grace of God. And we sustain the priesthood by the grace of God. And they magnify their priesthood by the grace of God. That's the way these things work. And when we begin to believe it and understand it, both in our youth and in our maturity, we'll see good times. And when we get that spirit out of our heart, we're due for a grubbing. This people has clung together as long as any group we've ever had. This group of faces are as familiar as any we've had.

If you fail to heed these counsels, you won't last. You can't last. Because you're not the people that God's looking for. God's looking for a people that will walk in these pathways and tender under him the things that are rightfully his. He has acquired these gifts and graces and attributes, and our praises and what little bit of glory we can pass on to him are very meager.

And he's self-sufficient in himself and he's not dependent upon us. But these powers that are his are the powers that we're depending upon to save us. And we should strive with our might to obtain the confidence of God that he'll help us through these times. I've learned and I've told you before, and I think maybe I ought to tell you again, that the faults and failings normally, the serious, little things, but the serious...

imperfections of the character cannot be overcome except by the grace of God. If you believe that, you'll have a key that will begin to help you. You can't do these things by yourself. You can't acquire the attributes of godliness by yourself. You can't read and understand and make your declarations and resolutions and execute them by your own power and judgment. It doesn't lie within the power of man to do these things.

And so we could heed the counsels that come to us from time to time. And if you listen to the brethren and listen carefully, you'll find that you get taught the things you need to know. Now, Brother Jeff never gets up and speaks to people, but what he admonishes is to exercise faith. Does he? He always tells it. And he always reviews those lectures on faith. I sat and listened to him one day, and if ever the word of God pulled from a man's mouth, it pulled from his.

in relation to this subject and the things that people ought to do to acquire the gift and power of God. Now, if you'd listen to those things, you'd know. It's impossible, as Scripture says, to please God without faith. And I can understand how it's impossible. Faith is an exercising of the mind. And in the exercise of faith in God, how do we exercise our mind? Why, we exercise our mind in confidence towards Him and in supplication.

and praise whatever whatever manner of of uh circumstances that we might be in i i sense this spirit of gratitude as a power of faith i begin to i begin to exercise my my gratitude by my faith i begin to recognize the blessings that come into my hand and i i very quickly turn my mind toward god so that's my faith i recognize instantaneously the source of my blessings. I love to think of a simple old story that I heard several years ago about the woman that was praying so earnestly for something to eat. One of the town smart alecks was walking along the walk in front of her house and heard her praying so earnestly to the Lord for something to eat and he thought he'd have some fun. So he went up to the grocery store and

picked up a pack of flour and some things and brought it back to the widow and knocked on her door. She invited him in and he laid it on the table. He says, well, there's something for you to eat. She says, I heard you praying. And I was quite amused and went on to ridicule the old lady a little bit. She says, God didn't bring it, I did. Well, she says, God sent it if the devil did bring it. These people uptown, they can feel any way they want to. But I've lived long enough to absolutely know beyond any shadow of doubt.

And all my gifts and blessings come by the grace of God. And I'd be discouraged if they weren't. I'd feel like that his eyes weren't upon me and he wasn't concerned. And I'd grow weary and discouraged. And I'd not have the power or the strength to lay hold upon eternal life. I'd feel that God is impossible to reach. And I think in this element of gratitude that we can obtain more blessings. If my child wants to obtain something to me, all I've got to do is just...

So just a little genuine and sheer heartfelt gratitude in anything. I don't feel like giving them. They might complete him someday. Father, I need this. Or Dad, I need that. Or I want this. Can I take the call? But all I looms up before my eyes is their rebelliousness and their indifference and their cruel attitude and their inconsideration. And I can turn them down as easy as I can draw a breath.

as easy as I draw my death. But just let that child come that has been faithful and gracious and returns to me the thanks and gratitude that I rightly have acclaimed to. There isn't anything that better. And my lovely daughter that's sitting here today, she often reminds me that under certain circumstances, well, now here comes one of father's lectures about the old days, those mean old days that we crawled on our hands and knees for life and breath. And I have to, by the sense of...

Gratitude that I feel toward God for the favorable circumstances that I find myself in hath to remind my family that it wasn't always like this. And I feel like sometimes, while there's no offense to this situation, that I sometimes feel like that they take it rather lightly, that it wasn't any light matter. It was life and death. The way most of us obtained our integrity and maintained our integrity is by the grace of God and the words of his faithful and clothed.

In many sense, I'm grateful for the experiences of the past that I might appreciate the present. I'm grateful that I had a long, long dry spell on the church. Real long. And I'm glad that Joseph must have left me there tied to that old post long after I found her a greener past. And once I got free, that I'd praise God all the days of my life for a source of life and life. Brother Cook often reminds us that we learn things by contrast. And I've learned a lot of the things that I know by contrast.

I learned to appreciate friends and brethren in the gospel of Jesus Christ by contrast. When I heard my old bishop break into high council, that I had grown up and been tottered on the knees of some of those old brethren, defamed the word of God and belittled the principles of life and salvation, I learned to appreciate men and regard them. So I learned that lesson by contrast. I've learned a lot of things by the things I've suffered.

People will bow their heads in gratitude. You'll not wear shabbier clothes than you wear today. God's glad to see you well-dressed. If you can wear them in gratitude and not spend all your time before the mirror admiring yourselves and letting yourselves be puffed up in pride and so forth. But if you can wear them in gratitude, God's glad enough to see you have them. But you certainly ought to recognize the source of your blessings. I have five minutes that I can spend in the company of my wife.

My heart swells with gratitude. And I recognize the source of my blessing. I'd have probably picked a woman that, of my own choice, I might have had one of the devil's wives and had to thank him for it. And my wife, by the grace of God. And these blessings that we obtain in this manner become dear to us because they're enduring and they last. All you people, if this is the theme and the lesson for today, let's learn it. In our school, we have to do a lot of things by repetition.

third and fourth grade arithmetic to high school students that they might learn to become proficient in simple arithmetic by repetition. We preach these things to you people repetitiously that you might remember to pay your gratitude to the people who is the person that's the source of your blessing. I often am amused at our foolishness. I've talked about this before and I don't want to go into it very far because it upsets me a little bit. You know, I think of the people that want to see that servants of God all martyred and become martyrs to their faith and let them stand and watch and hear and think that because the brethren are giving their lives for the gospel that saves the people, it stirs me a little, stupidity. But I often think of how we expect Brother Johnson to be just so and how it's his character to be just so. How he's acquired the disposition that he has. I've watched him in his

work and I've observed that he's one of the most resourceful and proficient men that I've ever seen do anything. But the Lord's kept him very humble. Now why? Why has the Lord kept him humble? Because he had a work to do for him to do. And that's the only way he could do his work. That's the only way that the Lord could say, Brother Johnson is in the spirit of humility. That's the only way that he can lead this people. And that's the only way that we can obtain our salvation. Absolutely the only way.

People have got to walk as cautiously and carefully as they can walk. Why do we have a group of enemies? Right here, right in our back door, you might say, or we're right in their back door. I don't know how it is. How is it? Why, they're there to keep us humble. And if this people wasn't living in the shadow of persecution, morning, noon, and night, we'd become as heady and proud and unkind to one another as we could be.

In no time. We've learned by sad experience that we need each other. Many of our friends have gone away and left the work and left the principle of plural marriage because they couldn't live it alone and they couldn't endure the people, so they've had to go away. They couldn't stay humble enough to be led by the priesthood. We need each other, and if so, we're kept humble. I'm kept humble because I don't want to bring reproach upon my brethren. I've seen the brethren are often intimidated, intimidated.

because of the hardship that they see by their carelessness that they could bring upon their people. And that's good experience for us. It's good experience. Our operations in the South are very humble, and the people have got to be that way and remain that way, or they'll never, never, no, never rise out of the circumstances they're in because they need encouragement and help of their brethren. They need it. If they don't get it, they're going to have a long, hard walk.

But if they get it, they in turn can bless others. So we're in dire need, my dear brothers and sisters, to recognize the hand of God and to exercise faith unto him and unto salvation. And there's no pleasanter way to approach God than in the spirit of gratitude. But it just as often reminded us that we should try to serve God out of the spirit of love, which to a very marked degree I go along with.

instead of a spirit of fear. Well, how do we go to God in love? Why, in the days of peace, we return our thanks and gratitude to him in the spirit of love and devotion and gratitude. And in our days of sorrow, we feel perfectly free to go and ask for a blessing. But if in our days of peace we've been negligent and remiss in these matters, then we go in shame and disgrace.

before God in our days of sorrow. Well clothed, and well fed, and well housed, and well loved, it would be well for us to remember our blessings. God bless you. Amen.