Mormon Musings

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." --January 27, 1838

I do the very best I know how -- the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten thousand angels swearing I was right would make no difference. Abraham Lincoln

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. Abraham Lincoln

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true.  I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have.  I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong. Abraham Lincoln

What a narrow measure it is to try and judge and calculate the infinite by the little our finite minds know. A story is told of Lincoln, who was supposed to be a great skeptic in his younger life. When he was down at Richmond as the war was drawing to a close one of his early companions—I think it was General Reynolds—suddenly came around the corner of the tent where the President was living and found him reading the Bible. The General began to twit him about reading the Bible, basing the raillery on the early life, as he understood it, of Lincoln. Then Lincoln said: "Well, I have grown older and wiser. I now read the Bible. I believe all I can and I take the rest on faith." And that is about where all of us are when it comes to the infinities that are involved in our spiritual welfare. J. Reuben Clark, April 1950 General Conference

I mention the gift of discernment (   D&C 46:27 ), embodying the power to discriminate, which has been spoken of in our hearing before particularly as between right and wrong. I believe that this gift when highly developed arises largely out of an acute sensitivity to impressions—spiritual impressions, if you will—to read under the surface as it were, to detect hidden evil, and more importantly to find the good that may be concealed. The highest type of discernment is that which perceives in others and uncovers for them their better natures, the good inherent within them... The gift and power of discernment in this world of contention between the forces of good and the power of evil is essential equipment for every son and daughter of God. There could be no such mass dissensions as endanger the security of the world, if its populations possessed this great gift in larger degree. People are generally so gullible one is sometimes led to wonder whether the great Lincoln was ...

In plain, blunt words, then, we are told that whatever nations occupy this land must serve God or die! The great men of modern America have given us similar warnings, peculiarly enough. A generation ago, Roger Babson, at that time one of our leading economists, said: “Only religion can prevent democratic rule from developing into mob rule. A nation can prosper only as its citizens are religious, intelligent, capable of service and eager to render it.” And then this great man said, and it is something to which we should give careful attention, “Every great panic we have ever had has been foreshadowed by a general decline in observance of religious principles.” Abraham Lincoln told the people of his day that America “need fear no danger from without. … If danger were ever to threaten the United States, it will come from within. ‘As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. …’” Then the great emancipator added this: “We have grown in numbers, wealt...

It is difficult to make a man miserable when he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him. The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.  Allow me to assure you that suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation.  There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel [and] to brood over the attempted injury. I never behold them [the heavens filled with stars] that I do not feel I am looking into the face of God.  I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God. I hold that if the Almighty had ever made a set of men that should do all the eating and none of the work, He would have made...

If I were to read, much less answer, all the attacks made upon me, this shop might as well close for any other business.  I do the very best I know how--the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end.  If the end brings me out right, what is said against me won't amount to anything.  If the end brings me out wrong, ten thousand angels swearing I was right would make no difference. Abraham Lincoln