Swiftly, Silently, Certainly… – Sunday – January 10, 1954
Sometimes we think of the past as a thing quite apart from the present. To say that something happened a century or so ago may seem like dimly long ago. But if we have lived through half a century, or a quarter, or even a sixth of a century, we know how quickly it has come and gone.
If we have lived through half a century, we know that two times our lifetime isn’t very long. Youth moves quickly to maturity. Families that once were young are then grown, and then gone, Children have their children, and parents become grandparents, as the generations move, swiftly, silently, certainly. But people haven’t changed much, and principles haven’t changed at all, even though much has happened, morally and materially.
No great truths have changed; no great principles have passed; no eternal plans or purposes have been abandoned. And men and women inside themselves are not so different from what they were. We might use a little different language; we might travel faster and farther; we might speak to more men; we might have much more of many things—and much less of others.
But the timeless virtues haven’t changed—nor the need for them. Honor and honesty, truth and chastity are still not basically different from what they were—nor the need for them. Still there are commandments to keep and standards that we pay a price for departing from. Sin still leads to the same inner unrest.
The ageless virtues, with willing work, are still the only way to prosperity and peace. No, a century isn’t so long ago, nor, in some ways, is twenty centuries. The great eternal truths that the Savior uttered are ever present, as are those which were given of God on Sinai some fifteen centuries sooner—and all the evils that ever were are still what they were, no matter what we may have come to call them; all the virtue, the truth, the goodness that ever was is still what it is and ever was, no matter what we might have come to call it.
The words may change, the styles may change, the man-made manner of life may change, but the stars are still in their course, the Creator is still in command and the eternal truths are still eternal in the ever-unfolding plans and purposes of Him in whose hands we are and in whom our faith is fixed.
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January 10, 1954
Broadcast Number 1,273