Talk given in October 1939 General Conference by Heber J. Grant, President.

Transcript:
This is about the first time since I became the President of the Church that we have run out of preachers. As there are a few minutes left, I shall occupy them myself.

GRATITUDE FOR OUTPOURING OF SPIRIT AT CONFERENCE MEETINGS

I desire to express my gratitude with all my heart for the very remarkable and splendid meetings we have had thus far in this Conference. This is a remarkable and wonderful gathering this afternoon on a week day, and the gathering this morning was a most marvelous one. We have been fed the bread of life. We have had spiritual food. We have felt in our hearts, I am sure, gratitude to God for the rich outpouring of his Holy Spirit thus far in our Conference. In the kind providences of the Lord it does seem to me that from year to year since I have had the privilege of being the President of the Church, our Conferences have been occasions where there has been a remarkable, and wonderful, and rich outpouring of the Spirit of the Lord, and for this I have been grateful beyond my power of expression.

PRAISE FOR AUTHORITIES OF CHURCH PAST AND PRESENT

I feel my own weakness when I undertake to make any comparison between myself and the men with whom I was associated as a child; with Brigham Young, until he passed away just before I was twenty-one years old; and with the other Presidents who preceded me after I became an Apostle.

The testimony borne here by Brother Joseph Anderson I can bear; that I know that for more than fifty long years now, from actual association as a member of the Council of the Twelve and the President of the Church, that the Apostles and the men who have stood at the head of this Church, with very few exceptions, have desired beyond everything else upon the face of the earth to know what the Lord would like them to do, and they were anxious to do it to the full extent of their ability.

LATTER-DAY SAINTS BECOMING KNOWN

The railing out against the Church, the viciousness and the lying about our people as a whole have almost entirely died out because people have come to know the desires of our hearts, that we have no enmity against even those who malign us. The Lord has helped us upon many occasions to make friends with some who were at one time our enemies. They have learned that every true Latter-day Saint is a servant of the Lord desiring to know what the Lord would like him to do, and although their own personal ambitions might be vastly different from those of ourselves, yet men are learning that a real, genuine Latter-day Saint is a man worthy to be trusted in all particulars because he desires to know the mind and will of God. While they may feel that we are mistaken as a people, they realize our honesty and integrity.

I have always been grateful that in the early days, when Daniel Tuttle presided over the Episcopal Church here, when he went East he would say, "While I disagree with the Mormons, they are honest; they are full of integrity; their devotion to the faith is fine; and I respect them." He was almost alone, however, in this attitude.

A MINISTER'S PERFIDY

I remember that a minister of one of the churches said that he attended a picnic out in Tooele County given by the Sunday School and that all of the teachers, every one of them was drunk and nearly all of the children. It so happened at that particular time, with the exception of a little mining town called Stockton, there was not a saloon in Tooele County, and there was not, as you all know, any picnic of Latter-day Saint teachers and Sunday School children where anyone was drunk. Such a statement was a lie pure and simple.

The gentleman afterwards delivered a very remarkable and wonderful sermon in the Salt Lake Theatre of which he was so proud that he furnished a copy of it to the Salt Lake Herald and another copy to the Tribune. It so happened that the editor of the Herald had to stay at the office that night because the assistant editor, who had to put the headings on the telegrams as they came in, was sick and had to go home, and the editor had to do the proof reading. Lo and behold, when he came to this sermon, he recognized it as a plagiarism, and said: "Send it to the composition room, knock it down and set it up in half columns." The next day it appeared in half columns as an "original sermon" by our dear friend, and next to it in parallel column the same identical sermon as preached by one of the great ministers of America who had been dead for about twenty years. Of course his associates tried him and then found other fields for his labors.

I am indeed thankful for our meeting here today and all that has happened.

An anthem, "The Almighty (Great Jehovah)"—(by Schubert), soprano solo by Margaret Stewart Hewlett, was sung by the Singing Mothers.

The benediction was pronounced by Elder Andrew Jenson, Assistant Church Historian.

Conference adjourned until 10 o'clock Saturday morning, October 7.