The Greatest Evil of the Age – Sunday, November 28, 1943
There is a question that has been pressing itself upon our thoughts, which, because of a traditional reticence, is sometimes difficult to speak of—but neither can it be ignored. Perhaps it can best be introduced by a quoted statement—a statement to the effect that “the greatest evil of the age is unchastity.”
One is usually inclined to challenge superlatives of any kind, and having heard the statement that among the almost innumerable evils of the day unchastity ranks first in destructive effect, our immediate reaction is to try to name some other evil that makes greater inroads upon the peace and well-being of men and society. But, upon reviewing the facts, we may well find ourselves concluding that the greatest evil of the age is unchastity. To begin with, unchastity is the forerunner or the companion of most other evils—certainly of drunkenness, of hate and jealousy, of distrust, of disease, of broken families and broken lives. Unchastity, and its by-products, are historically chargeable, in large measure at least, for the decadence and ultimate downfall of once formidable empires.
The home in which loose morals have taken hold is a tottering home; a nation of loose morals is a tottering nation—and a man of loose morals is a tottering, unsafe man. With unchastity comes an accusing conscience which drives peace from the heart, which, multiplied by the number whose lives it has affected, could account for the restlessness of a nation, for the disregard of other standards and ideals, for dishonor among men, and, with one evil pyramided upon another, for the driving of peace from the face of the earth. Indeed, there can be no peace where there is no personal righteousness-and there is no kind of modern thinking that is proof against the results that follow the breaking of a moral law.
It doesn’t matter what we moderns choose to call unchastity, the Lord God has already given it a name, and affixed penalties which the laws of nature inexorably execute—and its fruits are bitter even to those who thought they might be sweet. If there were words with which we could say it so that it would ring unforgettably in the ears of the fresh, clean youth of every land, we would speak it loud a thousand times from the housetops: Don’t take any false step from which there is no return. Don’t do anything for which there is certain regret and from which there is uncertain recovery. Don’t lose that which can never be regained. Don’t tamper with the wellsprings of life. Until someone names a greater one, we say again: “Unchastity is the greatest evil of the age”—and to give way to it is to set out upon a road on which there are certain regrets and from which there is no sure return.
By Richard L. Evans, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Nov. 28, 1943, over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. Copyright – 1943.
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November 28, 1943
Broadcast Number 0,745