Hearts that won’t Work – Sunday, July 21, 1940
It does not seem long since “O My Father” was heard from Temple Square, but the many requests from listeners from the eastern ocean to the western shores, tell us that it is time for it again. The music is not ours, except by adoption, but the words, By Eliza R. Snow, come from the very roots of the faith and belief and convictions of those who conquered the desert and reared these hallowed walls and built this glorious organ in the days of western pioneering. And we sing it now in a generation when men find themselves searching for things that endure; principles that will not have to be abandoned tomorrow; ideals that are good as long as time shall last; truth that is truth rather than vain supposition, and eternal realities that will last far beyond the limits of this life. Richard Condie and the Tabernacle Choir are heard singing—“O My Father, Thou that dewellest, In the high and glorious place. When shall I regain Thy presence, and again behold Thy face?”
We of the once-barren Inland West, pause to commemorate the achievements of our pioneers. What they were able to accomplish seems all the more remarkable when we consider what our generation has failed to do with its greater factual knowledge and its greater material resources. No soft generation was that which left the comfort and established ways of life for the greater freedom and the greater hardships of the West. Where a principle or a matter of conscience was involved, a material advantage or a personal convenience didn’t have a chance of standing in the way. It was no mere wangling over doctrine and philosophies. It was rather the story of a people face to face with life, who made their own way or starved, who lived according to their own convictions or fell by the wayside, and whose outlook on life may be stated in these words: “If a man thinks he has a superior faith or belief; or conviction, let him prove it by living a superior life.” After all, that is the demonstration of all truth—in science, in education, in political philosophies, in religious convictions, in business, in the arts, and the trades. Who cares about theories that won’t work, or convictions that yield under pressure, or philosophies that crumble with the weight of reality, or beliefs that won’t stand the test of life, or resolutions that straddle over barrier they come to, or eloquence who substance is air and whose performance is a contradiction? “If a made things he has a superior faith, let him show it by a superior life.” There is no other way. Of such
July 21, 1940
Broadcast Number 0,570