The LDS Citation Index app has conference addresses back to
1942. There are some wonderful things to find there.
In the October 1963 conference, I found this neat bit in
President David O. McKay’s talk “The True Purpose of Life”:
Aside from resisting such
oppression from without, each individual carries within himself the
responsibility of living nobly or ignobly. Daily every normal person is faced
with the choice of submission to what Paul designated the “works of the flesh”
(Gal. 5:19), or of reaching upward for the fruits of the Spirit, which are
“love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,
temperance” (Gal 5:22-23).
Conditions in the world today seem
to indicate that to many human beings are living not very far above the animal
plane. Cunning deception, thieving,
lying, cruelty, brutality warring conflicts are still all too common even among
Christian nations.
Charles Wagner in The Simple Life gives this impressive
warning against indulgence in animal desires:
“He who lives to eat, drink, sleep,
take his walk—in short, pamper himself all that he can—be it the courtier
basking in the sun, the drunken laborer, the commoner serving his belly, the
woman absorbed in her toilettes [makeup preparations], the profligate of low estate
or high, or simply the ordinary pleasure-lover, a ‘good fellow,’ but too
obedient to material needs—that man or
woman is on the downward way of desire, and the descent is fatal. Those who
follow it obey the same laws as a body on an inclined plane. Dupes of an
illusion forever repeated, they think: ‘Just a few steps more, the last, toward
the thing down there that we covet; then we will halt.’ But the velocity they
gain sweeps them on, and the further they go the less able they are to resist
it.
“Here is the secret of the unrest,
the madness, of many of our contemporaries. Having condemned their will to the
service of their appetites, they suffer the penalty. They are delivered up to
violent passions which devour their flesh, crush their bones, suck their blood,
and cannot be sated. This is not a lofty moral denunciation. I have been
listening to what life says, and have recorded, as I heard them, some of the
truths that resound in every square.
“Has drunkenness, inventive as it is of new drinks, found the means of
quench thirst? Not at all. It might rather be called the art of making thirst
inextinguishable. Frank libertinage, does it deaden the sting of the senses?
No; it envenoms it, converts natural desire into a morbid obsession and makes
it the dominant passion. Let your needs rule you, pamper them—you will see them
multiply like insects in the sun. The more you give them, the more they demand. He is senseless who seeks for happiness
in material properity alone . . . Our needs, in place of the servants that they
should be, become a turbulent and seditious crowd, a legion of tyrants in
miniature. A man enslaved to his needs may best be compared to a bear with a
ring in its nose that is led around and made to dance at will. The likeness is
not flattering, but you will grant that it is true.
“It is only by direct action on youth that a better society can be
successfully moulded. All pseudo-mysticisms—social, philosophical or
political—must be replaced by the Christian ideal, the only one based on liberty
and the respect of human dignity. When people have received the same education,
when they obey the same moral rules an think universally, they do not easily
accept the idea of fighting each other and are very near an understanding.”
A very profound thought. Indulgence of desire ultimately
doesn’t do away with it, but only inflames it.
I think we can easily forget this principle today because of the sheer mass of advertising we are subjected to, all of which is designed to convince us that we should give in to our desires, especially the ones that require buying something. This idea that all desires must be satisfied is bleeding into public discourse about sexuality as well.
The purpose of life is the gradual perfection of humanity
through Christ’s atonement. To be alive only to physical desires and not to spiritual desires or simple
beauties is to deprive ourselves of many of the joys of living. Christ specifically endorsed those who seek to gratify spiritual desires: "blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost." (3 Nephi 12:6).
President McKay also said:
Spirituality is the consciousness
of victory over self and of communion with the Infinite. Spirituality impels
one to conquer difficulties and acquire more and more strength. To feel one’s
faculties unfolding and truth expanding the soul is one of life’s sublimest
experiences. Being true to self and being loyal to high ideals develops
spirituality. The real test of any religion is the kind of man it makes. Being
“honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men”
(Article of Faith 13) are virtues which contribute to the highest acquisition
of the soul. It is the “divine in man, the supreme, crowning gift that makes
him king of all created things, the one final quality that makes him tower
above all other animals.
Today let’s be suspicious of our indulgences and instead welcome
every call to grow, learn, serve, and pray. Try the experiment and see if you are happier at the end of
the day than you were the day before.
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