Talks to Young Men. III: Doing Things Indifferently

TALKS TO YOUNG MEN. 111.— DOING THINGS INDIFFERENTLY. I have known young men to so far forget their duty as to always do things in a very indifferent, thoughtless manner. How young people should learn to despise carelessnes, slovenliness, indifference! "Let it slide," "let it go at that," "good enough," are extremely poor rules to adopt. The old adage, "Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well," is a splendid mark to work to. Get ready; do not act until you are ready, then do with all your might. That is the motto for a young man who is to prove a success — who is to make a character, a mark, in life. Indifference on the part of boys on the farm, in the shop, in the canyon, at the mills, in all employments, is much too common, and is the bane of parents and employers. But it is not alone there, it enters our homes, and even our religious worship. This reminds me of a letter I received some weeks ago on the indiffer- ence of young men who are home missionaries, and as they are in the minority, let us "go after" them, and apply the moral to our own vocation.
Here is the letter: One Sunday afternoon, some months ago, I visited a friend who resides in ward.
As the hour for worship drew near, I volunteered to accompany him to meeting, in order that our souls might be refreshed and fed with that spiritual manna which we so much need to sustain us while traveling through this "vale of tears." The choir and congregation united in a song of praise; an aged father in Israel
offered up a prayer of thanksgiving to the

TALKS TO
YOUNG MEN. 209 Most High for his manifold mercies and favors; and while in sol- emn tones the sweet singers again praised the Father for " *
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the wisdom and the love That filled the courts on high, And sent the Savior from above, To suffer, bleed and die," the holy emblems of the body and blood of Christ were passed around. Two elders (it would be improper to mention names) were then announced as the speakers of the evening. They were home missionaries. One of them stood before the congregation, and these are something like the words he said: "My brethren and sisters, I feel my weakness in standing before you this evening. I would much rather speak to the people of the world than to a con- gregation of Latter-day Saints. I find my mind a complete blank; I know of nothing that I can say to you." I turned to my friend and asked, "What did he say?" "That he has nothing to say," he replied. "Then why doesn't he sit down?" "He will, presently," replied my friend, "but he wants first to demonstrate the truth of his statement." For full twenty minutes, I sat and listened to one of the most uninteresting, spiritless, disjointed discourses that I have ever heard from the lips of an elder. When he resumed his seat, I re- marked to my friend, "We must give him credit for having at least told the truth — he said that he had nothing to say; he talked for twenty minutes and said nothing." It was my intention, when the missionary arose, to petition the Lord to bless and inspire him with his Holy Spirit; but when I heard him announce that he had nothing to say, I hesitated. I remembered the decree of the Almighty in the beginning, that in the sweat of his face man would eat bread all the days of his life, and as I am not impertinent enough to ask the Lord to fill with bread the mouth of the man who spends his days in idleness, neither had I the heart to ask him to fill with words of life and in- spiration the mouth of the mental drone.
If a home missionary

210 IMPROVEMENT ERA. has nothing to say to a congregation, then, it seems to me, he ought to abandon the ministry. I trust that no one will construe this as being a plea for prepared discourses. No one could be more opposed to prepared discourses than I am. We are taught by the revelations of Jesus Christ that these meetings should be conducted by the Holy Ghost, that men should speak as they are moved upon by him, and that unless men have the Spirit they are not to teach; but I have not yet learned how a missionary who, after filling one appointment, takes no thought of his calling until the hour comes for him to fill another, can expect the Lord to en- dow him with the Spirit of wisdom and instruction. The Latter-day Saints, as a people, are not among those who "make men offenders for a word." No matter how simple the language; or how ungrammatical the construction of the sentences, so long as we get ideas. One man said recently, "I wish I could find language with which to clothe my ideas." His friend replied, "I wish I could get ideas; I have no fear but I would find language with which to clothe them." That's the point — give us ideas, good, sound ideas. We do not care how the nut is broken, so long as yre get the kernel; we are not so much concerned about the platter on which the meat is served, as about the flavor in the meat. Mis- sionaries should begin to realize that people are getting tired of gnawing at bare bones. This missionary talked for twenty minutes and said nothing of interest or profit. He reminded me of a squirrel confined in a cage. For twenty minutes he rode on the cage wheel, and landed where he started, without having covered a foot of ground. He only benefited himself — he had exercised his limbs, and the only one benefited by the discourse referred to above was the mission- ary— he had exercised his lungs. I have heard another missionary address the Saints a number of times, and it seems to be that man's efforts to give expression to a few tame, lame, spiritless sentences. His discourses are as barren as a vestal virgin, and it is a wonder to me that the man hasn't become dissatisfied with himself long ago, and requested a release. You may think me severe, but listen to the whole of my story. I have known this same man, who cannot stand before the Saints ten minutes and address them intelligently, discuss for a

TALKS TO
YOUNG MEN. 211 considerable length of time each day, for several weeks, a noto- rious murder case. And it seemed strange to me how a man who could talk as much as he did about a murder could not talk for ten minutes on some of the principles of the Gospel. Perhaps the reason why he could talk so long about the murder was that every morning he had devoured all there was in the newspapers about it. No doubt if he had devoted half the time to the study of the Gos- pel that he had given to the murder, he would have been able to talk more intelligently about the Gospel. I heard another mis- sionary in private describe in detail a twenty-round prize fight that came off in the East a number of years ago. And yet, this same man, like the other, cannot address a congregation of Latter-day Saints with any degree of satisfaction — to the congregation. Now if this man had paid as much attention to the Gospel as he seems to have paid to prizefights, there would be a different story to tell. There is a man I know who can "talk politics" from morning till night, and yet when it comes to talking about the Gospel, he finds himself at sea. He takes two daily papers, and yet he told me he could not afford to subscribe for one of the Church publica- tions. So long as home missionaries devote so much of their time to reading about criminal sensations, prize-fights and politics, and so little of their time to the study of the Gospel, so long will we continue to have poor, dry, husky sermons. It seems to me that men who profess to be and call themselves ministers of the Gos- pel should devote at least as much time to the study of the things of God, as they do to the things of the world. The sooner that home missionaries learn that the gifts of God cannot be had merely for the asking, that they must couple works with their faith, the better it will be for themselves and their congregations. True, the Savior said, "Ask and ye shall receive," but we must not forget that he also said, "Search the scriptures," and that in these latter days he has repeated the injunction, telling us to "seek for words of wisdom out of good books." What of a dis- trict school teacher, or a Sunday school teacher, who would stand before his class, not once, but many times, and repeat the words of this missionary: "My mind is a complete blank; I have nothing to say to you this morning?" We would be looking around for hia successor.

212 IMPROVEMENT ERA. My brother said that he had nothing to say. What did he mean? Can it be that all the truth has been told? What about the great infinite atonement made by the son of God? Is there nothing new therein to be learned and dwelt upon? Do we know all there is to learn concerning the sacrifice of the Holy and Just One? True, we have heard much about the Savior's atoning sacri- fice; no doubt there are many things connected with that sacrifice which will not be understood this side of the millennium; but I am justified in saying that, notwithstanding all that has been said about it, there is yet in the mediation and atonement of our Re- deemer enough material for a thousand sermons. In conversation, recently, with a friend, he told me that many years ago a sister loaned him seventy-five dollars to enable him to emigrate to Zion. He came here, and after passing through a few trials, he found himself on the road to prosperity. But he seemed to forget his friend and benefactor; and, for a number of years, he did not send her so much as the interest on her note. But one day he remem- bered the one who had made it possible for him to gather to Zion. He said to himself, "It was her money that brought me here. Had it not been for that kind woman, I might yet be in Babylon work- ing for a mere pittance. And to think how ungrateful I have been to her!" He sat down, penned a kind letter, in which he implored her forgiveness, and enclosed part of the money he had borrowed. The more we think of that great sacrifice, the atonement of the Savior, the more do we realize our indebtedness to him who bought us with his own blood; and the more we realize the price- less value of that atonement, the more will we strive to love and serve him. If there were no other subject than the atonement of Christ to talk about, we should never let any one hear us say that we have nothing to say. "Nothing to say!" Surely in the Gospel of Jesus Christ there are truths which have never yet been fully explained. We have not come to the end of the "sweetest story ever told." Is it pos- sible that in this great latter-day work, this "marvelous work and a wonder," "there is nothing new under the sun?" "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise." Let us not play the part of the Prodigal Son, but instead of feeding ourselves and our hearers on dry husks, let us arise and go to our Father, and