It's my pleasure to introduce Elderly Grand Richard to you,

a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles.

I think perhaps in a brief introduction
it would be best to do it with some statistics.
He has served on four missions, three times a bishop,
president of the Hollywood stake,
the presiding bishop of the Church, author of the book,
a marvelous work and a wonder which has had wide circulation
and great impact among members of the Church
and those outside the Church.
A person who I think I can best describe by just saying
that I have spent the last hour with him
and I happened to be walking to this meeting with someone
who'd been with him in that hour and we both agreed
that because we'd been with him, we not only wanted to be better,
we thought we could.
It's a great pleasure to have with us here Elderly Grand Richard.
Elder Richards.
Well, I feel honored, my young brothers and sisters,
and the invitation extended to me to be here with you today
and say a few words to you.
I love our youth.
I think that you're wonderful.
I hope you'll just always stay wonderful
so you can take over our jobs when we old men and older women leave.
I've got somebody warming up for my job.
I don't know who it is, but he does.
He might be down here in the audience right now.
Now, as I thought of what I might say here today
to kind of organize my thinking, it occurred to me that many of you
are away from home probably for the first time and you'll be on your own.
You won't have your fathers and your mothers to prompt you every day
if you stay out too late at night and things like that,
or if you come home when you can't walk straight or anything of that kind.
You're on your own now.
And now is the time for you to lay the kind of a foundation
that you'll be proud of when you look back on your life
and know what you did while you were in your youth
because you've got an eternity ahead of you.
Now, I was over in Denver last Saturday and Sunday
and attended the Denver South State Conference and divided that conference.
I stayed in the home of President Hanson and I learned that he had a boy here.
I mean a young man.
I hope he's here today.
And one of the other brethren told me they had twins here.
And I was getting all introduced to you before I even got here today to talk to
you.
And then I thought, wouldn't it be wonderful if you, if the parents,
taking time before you came to sit down with you and sort of remind you what they
expect of you.
I'm sure they pray for you every day.
They're watching over you as far as their prayers will reach the heavens.
And then I think of when I was president of the Southern States Mission
and we had a boy leaving to come out west to go to school, attend college.
The night before he left, he and I sat up together until the wee hours of the
morning.
We talked things over.
We told, I told him what I expected of him.
I told him how I'd been raised.
And I tried to remind him that every day that he was away,
he'd be laying a foundation that might determine his whole life and eternity.
And then I reminded him before we parted of what my father expected of me.
He said to me one day,
My son, I'd rather lay you away on the mountainside clean
than to know that you had lost your virtue or robbed a woman of hers.
And I said to my son,
Now that goes for you, my boy, and I hope you'll never forget it.
And he turned to me and he said,
Daddy, I don't think you need to worry.
I hope that if your parents talk to you that none of them would need to worry,
that you've brought with you enough of moral fortitude and courage and faith in the
Lord
and in His restored gospel, you're honored as few people in all this world
to be able to live upon the earth at this time when the truth has been restored,
when the heavens have been opened after centuries of darkness,
and when you're going to stand out as a light unto all the world.
And then someday, you know,
we're the only people that believe in the eternal duration of the marriage covenant
and the family unit.
And when you have to raise your children
and you want them to grow up to be worthy,
enter the celestial kingdom, the presence of our Father in heaven,
you'll be a lot better teachers if you've lived the thing
that you're going to try to teach your children in the years that will come ahead.
So I hope that you'll realize the great opportunity that's yours
to be here at a church school where you have the privilege of associating with
people
of your own thoughts and your own religious thought.
For instance, when I had a daughter living back in Washington
and she had a daughter in high school and she was very popular there.
So when I was there visiting her, I said,
Nancy, would you like to make your grandpa promise?
She says, What's that, Grandpa?
That you won't have more than two dates with any of these non-Mormon boys
or that high school until you go out west and then you select your husband
from a good Mormon family.
She made me that promise.
And she finally came west, went to college and married the son of a patriarch.
And he's a doctor.
They now have five little girls and one boy.
And they're living the gospel.
And they're planning now to stand at the head of their posterity throughout
eternities.
Now, if she hadn't made me that promise, she might have married a non-Mormon boy.
And I could tell you a lot of sad stories about girls who thought,
well, I'll bring him in the church, but it doesn't always work.
There's only about a third of them that marry out of the church
that are successful in bringing their companions into the church.
So I imagine that one of the motives that's had to cause your parents to send you
here
was the hope that you would find your companion here among these fine,
latterly-saint boys and girls.
Many of you come from the best families in the church from all over the world.
You could almost pick with your eyes shut, I hope.
At least if you wouldn't need more than one date with you girls or one of these
boys
until you'd know whether they're worthy to be elders in Israel and bear the
priesthood of God
or whether they'd take advantage of it.
If you'd let them, you know there's so much beauty in the world if you just live
for the beauty.
Remember the little song in South Pacific?
If you don't have dreams, your dreams can't come true.
Now, if you'll dream dreams up in the clouds and not down in the muck and the mire,
and then when you're together you'll talk about the wonderful things in the world
and the wonderful things in the church and the wonderful future that's ahead of you
if you'll just live for it and you don't get down into the—
well, you know what I mean.
Remember that little saying that,
To every man there openeth a way, and ways, and a way,
And some souls climb the highway, and others grop the low.
And in between on the misty flat the rest drift to and fro.
But to every man there openeth a highway and a low,
And every man decideth the way his soul shall go.
Now, wouldn't it be pitiful if a student had come to this great institution
with all these wonderful teachers here and these wonderful young men and women to
associate with,
and then you'd walk the low highway or in between on the misty flat, you know,
you'd just be a person.
The Lord's called us out of the world to be enlightened of the world,
and what if in all man's sight we'd let our light go out?
The Lord said, Let your light so shine before men that they see you good works,
may glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Now, along that line you can think of a lot of things.
When you boys take a girl out and she lifts you up above the mean things of this
world
and makes you feel like life is wonderful, then you know that she's a good girl.
And when you girls go out with a boy and they try to take advantage of you,
well, I think you ought to slap them.
I don't suppose you'd do that, but they'd have it coming to them whether you did it
or not.
Remember what the Lord said in the Revelation to the Prophet Joseph
in the 121st section of the Doctrine and Covenants?
He said, Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly,
then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God.
And the doctrines of the priesthood shall distill upon your soul as the dews from
heaven,
and the old and the Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion.
Now, my experience in the Church, and I've had a lot of it,
I've told my children I'd rather they'd enjoy the companionship of the Holy Ghost
than any other companionship I know of in this world.
And if they're going to be entitled to that kind of companionship,
it'll be because they let virtue garnish their thoughts unceasingly
and they don't live according to the mean things of this world,
but they live above the things of the world.
And that's what the Lord's promising here in this wonderful Revelation to the
Prophet Joseph Smith.
Then you remember the Apostle Paul said,
Be ye not deceived, O vain man, for whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap.
Just like the farmer, if he sows wheat, he's going to reap wheat.
If he sows corn, he's going to reap corn.
If he sows barley, he's going to reap barley.
Now, in that same sense, Paul's telling us,
And whatsoever we sow, that shall we also reap.
And then he adds, And he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap
corruption.
Now, let me just illustrate that.
Here a short few years back, there was an announcement in the newspaper there in
Salt Lake
of a young man who'd committed suicide.
The newspaper said he was discouraged.
His father told me that he was that he has committed suicide because he was reaping
corruption
from the immoral life that he is living until life was not worth living any longer.
And he thought he could put an end to it.
That's what Paul meant when he said,
He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.
But he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
And so just remember that day by day you're sowing the seeds that will determine
what kind of a harvest you're going to have.
And remember that that harvest period is not just for mortality,
but it'll lead you on into the eternities that are to come.
And nobody can make the decision for you whether you're going to walk the highway
fair or drift between in the misty flats or walk in the low road.
So this church school is here to help you to raise your ideals and your ambitions
and plant in your hearts a desire to do that that will entitle you, as the Lord
said,
to the companionship of the Holy Ghost to guide and direct and inspire you to be
the
kind of men and women the Lord wants you to be so that you'll be entitled to all
the
blessings that he has in store for the faithful of his children.
Now I suppose that you've heard many sermons in your life.
I've heard thousands of them.
I heard a sermon when I was a young man, a little younger than you are here,
that I've never forgotten.
I've forgotten thousands of them, but this one I've never forgotten.
In fact, we used to know when I was raised in a little country town, they never
planned anything.
The bishop would come and look around and call up a few old men as old as I am.
Only they had white beers.
Mine isn't white because I won't let it grow.
But anyway, we knew their sermons before they'd start.
They'd start with Genesis and end with Revelation.
We could have gone home and told our parents what they'd preached about without
ever remaining
to hear them.
But once in a while a great surprise had come.
Now I don't know whether you've ever heard me tell this or not, but one day in one
of
our sacrament meetings when I was just a young boy, a man came with a tube of
twelve plank
about that long and a sack of nails.
And he drove all those nails in that plank.
And then he pulled them out one by one.
And he said, you see, they were there, but they're not there anymore.
But the holes are there.
And then he preached a sermon on the holes.
That's been a great guide and inspiration to me all my life.
I didn't want to have holes even if to pull the nails out, even if the Lord had
forgiven
me for the bad mistakes I made.
I didn't want to have the memories that I had to live with all my life.
They would be the holes in the planks.
Incidentally, this same man—I think you've heard me say this before—he told us
young
fellows we had not to be kissing girls before we were sure we were going to marry
them.
We didn't know anything about this petty and heavy-petting they talk about.
I didn't even know what a thing like that was until recently.
I had to ask Brother Peterson.
He and Brother Kimball seemed to know all the dirty things I tried to keep my mind
clean.
Fawkes are thieves, and their airy wings are swifter than carrier's doves.
They speed o'er the track to bring you back whatever goes out of your mind.
I didn't want to get my mind all cluttered up with such things as that.
As I say, I've never forgotten that story.
I can go back now to the little town where I was raised as a boy, and I can tell
those
parents and grandparents how to raise their sons and their daughters.
I'm not afraid of a couple old ladies my age sitting down in the corner with their
heads together and saying, Yeah, but you'd ought to have known him when we knew him
as
a boy.
That would have been the holes in the planks, wouldn't it?
Now you're going to be men and women someday, and I hope when you reach that stage
there
won't be any holes there that you'll have lived your lives so sweet and clean that
you
can talk to your children and your grandchildren the way my father talked to me as
a boy.
In the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord said, Abide ye in the liberty, for with you
are
made free.
Entangle not yourselves in sin, but let your hands be clean until the Lord comes.
Now a lot of people entangle themselves in sin.
Here a few years back I had to talk to the inmates of the Utah State Penitentiary.
There were quite a few of our people in there in prison robes, and one man was a
grandson
of one of the presidents of the Church, one was a grandson of the presiding bishop—
not
mine—and another had been a missionary in the mission field, another had been the
ward clerk.
And there they were in that great penitentiary because they had entangled
themselves in sin.
And the Lord said that we should not do that and we should keep ourselves clean
until the
Savior comes.
Now we'll all have to account for what we do sooner or later, and we ought to try
and
keep ourselves clean.
There was that group that after the meeting was over, and we had a good attendance
in
the prison because there was nowhere else for them to go, you heard this story
about
the good brother who was asked to dismiss the meeting and he prayed that the Lord
would
take them all home in safety, but we didn't have anything like that.
There were some of the alcoholic anonymous there, and they invited me to come back
and
have a meeting with them.
Of course, whenever I went I would make sure that I got a round-trip ticket so I
could
get out of that penitentiary.
Well, I met with these alcoholic anonymous one day, and they went to introduce me,
and
I said, well, before you introduce me, I'd like to hear from one of you men.
I'd like to know how you feel and what you're here for.
And the man in charge stood up and he said, I thank God for the privilege of being
in
this institution.
He said, before I came here, I was no good to my family.
I was no good to my church.
I was no good to my country.
I was just no good, period.
Now he said, I have hopes that when I get out of here, I'll be worth something to
somebody.
Now that's what it is when you entangle yourselves in sin and then you have to
answer for what
you do.
Just a minute.
I made some notes.
I don't know where you make notes.
Paul said, for I have not seen or ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart
of
man the thing that God has prepared for them that love him.
Now we're told that if we sow to the flesh of the flesh, we'll reap corruption.
But if we sow to the Spirit, we shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
Now it's to be hoped that every boy and girl here will sow to the Spirit, that you
live
each day, that you can get down on your knees and ask the Lord to protect you from
the evils
and the temptations of the world that day and then at night, that you can get on
your
knees and thank God for having done that.
When I was president of the mission over in Holland, one of my missionaries was
being
released to come home.
He said to me, he said, President Richards, I'm afraid to go home.
And I said, Why?
He said, I had some bad companions before I came on this mission, and I'm afraid
that
when I go home I might not have the courage to stand out against them.
So I said to this missionary, Well, if you will make me a promise, I'll make you a
promise.
If you promise me that you'll never go to work in the morning or whatever your
activity
is without first getting down on your knees and talking to the Lord like you've
done here
in this mission field, and you'll never let the day end without you getting down on
your
knees and thanking the Lord for protecting you and keeping you clean during that
day,
I promise you, you'll have the courage to resist your companions.
Well, I didn't see him for a year or two, and I was home and in business and
sitting
in my office one day, and I saw the front door open and a young man in uniform was
walking
in, and I walked up.
I recognized him.
He was this missionary I've told you about.
And as we shook hands, he didn't say, How are you, President Richards?
He said, President Richards, do you remember what you made me promise you before I
left
the mission field?
I said, I certainly do.
And I said, You kept your promise.
I can see it all over you.
He said, I'm just as clean as I was when I left you.
I have great faith in the power that we can get from above.
When the Savior visited the Nephites, He admonished the brethren to pray with their
wives and
their children, to pray with their families that their wives and their children
might
be blessed.
And we have to have His help in order to avoid the evils and pitfalls of the world.
As you read your Bible, you remember that when Satan was cast out, the cry went
out,
Woe to them that dwell upon the earth!
For Satan is cast down, and he goeth about seeking whom he can destroy.
And if he can destroy one of you, he'll do it.
But if you live near to the Lord so you can enjoy the companionship of the Holy
Ghost,
as I've read to you here from the promise of the Lord, you'll be able to tell him
to
get behind you and get out of the world, rule him.
Now, President George Albert Smith used to so often tell our young people that they
shouldn't
get on the devil's territory.
And if you'll keep yourselves sweet and clean, and when you associate you girls
with boys
and boys with girls, if you live up in the clouds and not get down into the bad
things
of life, I tell you, the Lord will pay you back in dividends to you and your
children,
your posterity, a hundredfold for everything that you do.
Now speaking of entangling yourselves in sin, I'll give you just a few little
illustrations
of what I mean.
I've told you about my experience at the penitentiary.
I read a little article in one of the magazines a few years ago called The Mistake.
I couldn't quite pick it up or I'd have read it to you here.
I don't know where I put it.
But it told about a young couple after their graduation from high school were out
together
and they got into trouble.
The result was that a baby was born and he said, never mind.
He said, we'll work it all out together.
And that night after the lads were all out and he'd gone to sleep, she wet the
pillow
with her tears saying, it isn't what they say.
You can't work it out together.
She said, I'll have to live with it as long as I live.
You see, that's what it is when you get entangled in sin.
I was riding on the train up here in Idaho years ago when we used to ride the
trains
instead of the airplane.
And after everybody had left the coach that I was in, the brakeman came in and sat
down
by me and he said, your brother Richards, aren't you?
And I said, yes, sir.
And then he told me this story.
He'd been on a mission.
He came home.
He married a girl.
She was able to get a temple recommend.
They don't always tell the truth.
Some of them wouldn't get in the temple if they'd tell the truth.
And then after they were married, he found out that she had been immoral with a
man.
And he said to me, now, brother Richards, what am I going to do?
He said, am I going to be true to my marriage covenants and to stay with that girl?
Can I trust her to raise my children the way I was raised?
You see, that's the hole in the plank.
And that's when you're entangled in sin.
Those are the things that you have to live with.
I had a girl come into my office one day.
She had a letter she just received from her boyfriend from over in Korea.
The letter read like this, Please forget that you have ever known me.
I'm unworthy of your love.
And then I said to her, how long did you keep company with that boy?
And she said, three years.
I said, did he ever try to take advantage of you?
And she said, no.
But he got over there, and he got into bad company, and he got himself entangled
into
sin.
And then he wrote to this girl and asked her to forget that she had ever known him.
I received a letter from a young man in uniform down in San Diego, California,
during the
hottest fighting of the war.
And the letter read something like this.
He said, Brother Richards, I was always a good boy.
I got all of my priesthood awards when I was home.
I came here in uniform.
I got in with a bad group one night, and we went across to Tijuana, and I lost my
virtue.
Now he said, I'm wondering, will there ever be a time come when I can invite a good
Mormon
girl to marry me in one of the temples of the Lord?
That's the holes in the plant.
That's the entanglement in sin that you have to live with.
Even if the Lord forgives us sin, you still have the memories that stay with you.
And there are the holes in the plant.
A woman came to me from Ogden one day, while I was the presiding bishop, and told
me this
story.
Her son had always aspired to want to go on a mission.
And then he got out with a group of young people one night, and he lost his virtue.
And the result of it was a baby that was born, and he married this girl.
And she just wanted to keep him at home all the time.
And he aspired to study medicine, and she wouldn't let him go for that, and he
couldn't
go on his mission.
And one day he said to this girl, I hate you.
I hate you more than anybody else in this world.
He said, you've robbed me of every achievement that I had in my youth to want to
accomplish.
You see, that's what it is to have the holes in the plant and to have the
entanglement
in sin.
You have to meet it sooner or later.
And no matter if there is forgiveness, you've still got the memories there that are
in spoils
and your lives and cutters them up.
And then when you have a chance to marry someone good if you've been in trouble,
then you wonder
whether or not he'll ever be satisfied with you.
Just a minute.
I had a couple come in my office one day.
They had three children, and she hadn't told him anything about her past life.
And then she told him that she had a child born out of wedlock, and she'd given it
away.
And then they came to me to know what to do.
He said, shall I stay with her?
Shall I let her be my wife?
Or shall I divorce her and find a girl that's clean?
You see, there are the trouble, the holes in the planks.
And so I'm just advising you now to be sure that you don't make mistakes that
you'll
have to regret.
Have a good time.
Be happy, but be joyful.
And talk about the good things, like the song, If You Don't Have Dreams, How Can
Your Dreams
Come True?
In other words, if there is a highway and a lull and in between on the misty flat
the
rest drift to and fro, be sure that you're traveling the highway.
Nobody can make that decision for you, and you don't want to be just one in
between.
That's why there are three degrees of glory—the celestial kingdom like the sun, the
terrestrial
like the moon, the telestial like the stars.
As one little star differs with the other star in glory, so also shall be the
resurrection
of the dead.
Nobody can determine for you what that'll be.
And then if you walk the highway fair, if you walk down the high road, then you're
passing on to your children a heritage that they will love and honor and respect
you for
it that you can't do if your lives have been cluttered up with sin and you've got
so many
holes in the planks.
Now if you do that and avoid the entanglements in sin and keep yourselves sweet and
clean
and keep close to the Church, best friends you have in the world, and then keep
close
to your Heavenly Father in prayer and live one day at a time.
But make sure that that day will be a happy day and that it'll be not only that
you'll
live for yourself but that you'll live to be example to those with whom you're
associated.
It would be wonderful if everybody that you're with would look up to you and honor
you like
when I was on a mission over in Holland and we were standing on the street one day
and
when the missionary started walking down the street and his companion said,
Isn't he a prince of a fellow?
I think it means something if men can live so that those who know him best regard
him
as a prince of a fellow and then the women, to me, they ought to be angels.
I mean, they're good angels, not black ones.
You know what I mean now.
I think that you women ought to all aspire to want to be angels so that you'll
inspire
your boyfriends and all that you associate with with a desire to keep yourselves
sweet
and clean that you'll have no regrets.
And then do your work in the Church and God will bless you and exalt you, and the
prayers
of your parents who are praying for you every day that you're here will be answered
and
the Lord will be glorified.
I leave you my love and blessing and pray the Lord to bless you all in the name of
the
Lord Jesus Christ, amen.