“…let there be Reverence” – Sunday, April 6, 1952
“All real joy and power of progress . . . depend on finding something to reverence, and all the baseness and misery of humanity begin in a habit of disdain.”1 These words of John Ruskin suggest some of the results of irreverence and also some of the symptoms. Some irreverence is more a matter of thoughtlessness, as the boisterousness of boys. Some, as Ruskin wrote, partakes of deliberate, cynical disdain. Some shows itself in profane and offensive speech. Some is evident only in attitude. Some is apparent by confusion and disorder in places where there should be quiet and contemplation.
True reverence is not strained or stiff or artificial, but a sincere sense in one’s soul that some things are sacred—that some things should not be lightly spoken of nor lightly considered. In the presence of great art, great music, great minds there is due respect and deference.
Then how much more respect and deference are due the Creator of heaven and earth, in whose image men were made, whose wisdom and works are infinite, to whom we owe all the bounteous blessings of life, the recurring seasons, the springtime, the harvest, the love of family and friends, the reality we have here and the assurance of life hereafter. If we lose the spirit of reverence as to the works and ways of Providence, we shall lose much else also—for the kind of corrosion that rusts away reverence also rusts away other finer feelings.2
Certainly, life need not be long faced. Certainly, there are many times and places when high-minded humor and light-hearted talk and heartily informal fellowship are a permissible and important part of life. But there are also sacred places, sacred hours, sacred subjects that should be reverently respected—and he who is insensitive to them is sometimes suspected of lacking some essential training or some essential qualities of character.
We commend these words from the seventeenth century: “Let thy speeches be seriously reverent when thou speakest of God or His attributes; for to jest or utter thyself lightly in matters divine is an unhappy impiety, provoking Heaven to justice, and urging all men to suspect thy belief……. Always and in everything let there be reverence.”3
1John Ruskin: The Crown of Wild Olive
2Francis Hawkins. Youth’s Behavior
3‘Confucious: The Book of Rites
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station K S L and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, April 6,1952, 11:30 to 11:30 a.m., Eastern Time. Copyright, 1952
__________________________________________
April 6, 1952
Broadcast Number 1,181