The Encircling Gloom – Sunday, July 19, 1942
“Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom.” Perhaps we have never before been so much aware of the encircling gloom as we are at this time—a gloom of hate, of oppression; a gloom of ignorance, and of cynicism; the gloom of lost honor, broken promises, and abandoned morals—a gloom that has cast its pall over the face of earth.
It is little to be wondered that men should yearn fervently in their hearts for that guidance which would lead them through “the encircling gloom.” Under these circumstances there are those who take the pessimistic attitude that the powers of evil will triumph—that there isn’t enough moral courage or personal righteousness left to overcome them—that truth, which has been on the scaffold so many times, is really going to be strangled this time.
These are the things some would have us believe; these are the conclusions of lost faith, of cynicism, of fatalistic despondency—the conclusions of those who fail to reckon with the unseen forces that overrule in the lives of men. Because there are those who cannot see beyond the “encircling gloom,” they would have us believe that there is nothing beyond. But this is one of the old fallacies of human reasoning fallacy that leads us to suppose that the things we don’t know don’t exist—that the things we can’t see aren’t there—-that the truth we don’t understand isn’t truth at all. “0, the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men!” (Book of Mormon, 11 Nephi, 9:28).
There are so many things we can’t prove that are true! There are so many things we can’t see that exist! There are so many things we don’t know that are real! There are so many things men deny for lack of understanding, but the fact that limited intelligence has misconstrued a fundamental truth does not invalidate that truth. The fact that human capacity for understanding is greatly restricted does not restrict the powers beyond our understanding. And this is our protection against our own ignorance, for which we thank God, who rules the heavens and the earth and all that in them is. “Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom”—the gloom beyond which we cannot see, but from which we know we shall emerge, with that faith which makes it possible for us to walk where we cannot see, to trust where we do not have certain knowledge, and to live for glorious things yet to come!
By Richard L. Evans, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, July 19, 1942, over Radio Station K S L and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. This comment followed the singing of “Lead, Kindly Light,” by Harold H. Bennett and the Tabernacle Choir.
Adapted from the book “Unto the Hills; copyright by Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
July 19, 1942
Broadcast Number 0,674