Sing Only What We Believe

Sing Only What we Believe P.Y IIEBER J. GRANT, OF THE QUORUM OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES 1 recently attended the funeral of a faithful sister, the wife of an Apostle, and the stake president of the Relief Societies. A solo was beautifully rendered entitled, "Just as I am," sung, I understood, by special request. The melody is beautiful, one of the finest, to my untrained ear, I have ever heard. On March 29th and 30th the second annual musical contest of Davis Stake was held at Kaysville and Bountiful. One of the solo contest pieces was, "Just as I am." I did not have the pleasure of attending the contest, but Sunday evening at my request, the East Bountiful choir, the successful choir contestants, rendered the contest piece, "In Our Redeemer's Name." I was pleased and inspired with their singing. That which pleased me most was the perfect enunciation given to the words of the song. To my mind the musician who pays little or no attention to the words of a song destroys half the value and charm of his or her singing. The object of writing this article for the Era is to show the absurdity of Latter-day Saints singing such a piece as "Just as I am." I quote it in full : JUST AS I AM "Just as I am, without one plea, But that Thy blood was shed for me, And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee, O Lamb of God! I come, I come! "Just as I am, and waiting not To rid my soul of one dark blot. To Thee, whose blood can cicanse each spot, O Lamb of God! I come, I come! "Just as I am, though tossed about, With many a conflict, many a doubt, Fightings and fears within, without, O Lamb of God! I come, I come!

SING ONLY WHAT WE BELIEVE 785 "Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind, Sight, riches, healing of the mind, Yea, all I need, in Thee to find, O Lamb of God! I come, I come! "Just as I am; Thou wilt receive, Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve; Because Thy promise I believe, O Lamb of God! I come, I come! "Charlotte Elliott." It would be next to impossible to find more false teachings in so short a space than are contained in the above hymn. We who know the gospel to be true know that it is a falsehood that sinners will be received and pardoned and forgiven who have not taken the time to rid themselves of "one vile blot." Salvation will come only to those who repent and have their sins washed away by baptism, and who thereafter show by a godly life that their repentance is genuine. Nothing is truer than the teachings of James that "faith without works is dead." "It is like the body without the spirit." We all know that after the spirit has left the body, the latter soon becomes obnoxious and has to be buried. For falsehoods, pure and simple, I believe that the poem, "Just as I am," deserves a premium. While in the European Mission, I gave three years of as faithful labor as it was possible for me to give, endeavoring to eradicate from the minds of the people just such false teachings as are contained in this song. The Lord said in a revelation contained in Section 25 of the Doctrine and Covenants : "My soul delighteth in the song of the heart, yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads." Can a song, the teachings of which are false, be a prayer of the heart uttered to the Lord? Would a prayer which was false be one of those to which the Lord had reference when he said, "My soul delighteth in the song of the heart" ? Most decidedly the Lord could not have had reference to such a prayer when he said : "The song of the righteous shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads." Every reader of the Era knows how absurd it would be to answer, "yes" to the above question. The fact that we cannot answer yes tells plainly that we should not sing songs where false doctrine is taught.

786 IMPROVEMENT HRA A number of years ago I wrote an article for the Era — one of the first that I ever wrote — where I gave a practical illustration of a very remarkable fulfilment of the promise which the Lord makes in the revelation from which I have quoted. I have pleasure in quoting it : Elders J. Golden Kimball and Charles A. Welch, neither of whom claim to sing well, while on a mission in the Southern States, were about to baptize some converts; a mob had assembled, and the brethren were given to understand that if they carried out their intentions of baptizing that the mob would throw them into the river. The brethren determined to go ahead no matter what the result might be. Before doing so, however, they sang a song. The song seemed to have such an effect upon the mob that they were almost transfixed. The brethren proceeded with their baptisms, and then went some distance to attend to confirming the baptized. A message came from the mob asking them to come and sing that song again, and the request was complied with. The leader of the mob, Joseph Harvis, afterwards joined the Church, and he stated to Elder Kimball that the sentiments of the hymn, and the inspiration attending the singing, converted him to the gospel. Brother Kimball's recollection is that the hymn was "Truth Reflects Upon Our Senses." The more beautiful the music by which false doctrine is sung, the more dangerous it becomes. I appeal to all Latter-day Saints, and especially to our choirs, never to sing the words of a song, no matter how beautiful and inspiring the music may be, where the teachings are not in perfect accord with the truths of the gospel. Singing is a very splendid part of the worship of the Latter-day Saints, and all are proud of the record which Utah's two great musical organizations, the Salt Lake and the Ogden Tabernacle choirs, have made at home and abroad. There are also hundreds of other excellent choirs, from Canada on the north to Mexico on the south, whose singing to the ordinary lay member, like myself, is an inspiration. I have listened in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Christiania, Zurich, and Rotterdam to our "Mormon" choirs whose singing has been the equal in its inspiring and uplifting character to any that I have heard in the stakes of Zion. The lesson which I desire to teach in this article is that no individual singer, or organization of singers, in the Church, should ever render a selection unless the words are in full liar-