For over 40 years, Richard L. Evans was the voice and writer of Music & the Spoken Word. In 1959, he delivered a message that, today, feels as timely as ever. He began by quoting a line from a well-known patriotic hymn: “Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law.”[1] He then made keen observations about the relationship between self-control, liberty, and law:
“[These principles] are basic to life, basic to the eternal plans and purposes of the Lord. … But sometimes we seem more to have remembered freedom than self-control, liberty more than the law.
“As we come together, live together … in a world where physically we come ever closer together, always we have to have self-control, always we have to live our lives with law as well as with liberty. Always we have to consider the rights, the privileges, the comfort, the convenience of others, with an awareness that we have no right to do anything we want, to take anything we want, or irresponsibly to say anything we want, or to befoul the moral atmosphere, or the water others use, the air where others are, the peace that others have, or their rightful privacy, or to live uninhibited lives. We have to be considerate of others always. Self-control, with law, is the only safeguard of liberty; and not the existence of law only, but respect for law, obeying the law—the laws of God, the laws of the land.
“[Acclaimed filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille] said this of laws and liberty …: ‘We are too inclined,’ he said ‘to think of law as something merely restrictive—something hemming us in. We sometimes think of law as the opposite of liberty. But that is a false conception. … God does not contradict Himself. He did not create [us] and then, as an afterthought, impose upon [us] a set of arbitrary, irritating, restrictive rules. He made [us] free—and then gave [us] the commandments to keep [us] free. …’[2]
“To this great utterance we would add: The greatest threat to liberty is lawlessness. And the greatest assurance of liberty is respect for law. ‘Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law.’”[3]
[1] “America the Beautiful,” Hymns, no. 338.
[2] Cecil B. DeMille, “The Ten Commandments and You” (Brigham Young University commencement address, May 31, 1957), speeches.byu.edu.
[3] Richard L. Evans, May Peace Be with You (1946), 125–26.
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July 03, 2022
Broadcast Number 4,842
The Tabernacle Choir
Orchestra at Temple Square
Conductors
Mack Wilberg
Organist
Andrew Unsworth
Brian Mathias
Host
Lloyd Newell
O God, Our Help in Ages Past
William Croft; arr. Mack Wilberg
My Country, ‘Tis of Thee
Traditional; arr. Mack Wilberg
National Emblem March
Edwin Eugene Bagley; arr. Robert Cundick
America, the Dream Goes On
John Williams; arr. Michael Davis
America the Beautiful
Samuel A. Ward
America the Beautiful
Samuel A. Ward; arr. Mack Wilberg
Battle Hymn of the Republic
William Steffe; arr. Peter J. Wilhousky