Opposing Forces – Sunday, May 02, 1943
The great forces that are at work in the physical world have a close counterpart in the forces at work in the lives of men. In nature there is a constant leveling process which relentlessly attempts to void and offset all upbuilding. As the mountains rear their heads above the commonplace level of the earth’s surface, the winds and the rains, the frosts and the heat of the day strive to break them down to the common plane, and the high places tend to be lowered and the valleys to be filled in. It is difficult to be conspicuously different even in nature; and, similarly, in the lives of men.
That force for good which constantly works within us would lift us to high places, but once let a man rear his head above mediocrity and immediately there seem to come into greater play those influences which would push him down again. It may be the jealousy and envy of his fellow men; it may be the power of evil; it may be a man’s own misuse of his success; it may be the temptations that seem to multiply as we ascend. And so in human affairs it is difficult to be conspicuously different. But our generation needs those men who rear their heads above the common level, who have the strength to reach and to hold to high principle, to withstand the eroding winds of temptation, the breaking beat and cold of jealousy and criticism, the wearing down of compromise—we need them so that the level that human-kind reaches may be determined, not by the worst elements in our society, but rather by the better influences among us. And if we are to hold the gains of centuries, and if progress is to continue, the leveling process, where men are concerned, must be a process of building up from the bottom, and not merely the cutting down, or leveling off, or pushing over, of those who have attained higher ground.
This may be leveling off—but it isn’t building up—it isn’t progress. To sacrifice the mountain peaks to appease the vanity or the envy of the valleys and the plains would make the whole world poorer, not richer. Who then would curb the winds, or hold back the floods, or water the valleys below? And who, then, would see beyond the nearest horizon?
By Richard L. Evans, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, May 2, 1943, over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. *Revised from “This Day … and Always”; copyright, 1942, Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York.
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May 02, 1943
Broadcast Number 0,715