The Home and The Church - Factors in Character Building

By President David O. McKay

Leadership Convention at the Brigham Young University

February 5, 1946

[1] We are fortunate to have with us this morning this inspirational choir. I think that I am not exaggerating when I say that here in this building we have heard in times past and this morning the very best in choral singing and in solo work and I am happy to be with you in the presence of those young men and young women who have been so trained as to inspire us as they have done this morning.

In the ultimate analysis the purpose of leadership week is to learn how more thoroughly and effectively we may train children and young people. That is particularly true of this session and of the mutual session this evening. The child is the center of our thoughts. It has been truly said that the destiny of any nation may be determined by the thoughts of the young men between the ages of 18 and 25. That shows the great need of centering our thoughts and our plans upon the training of youth.

And with that in mind I have chosen the theme, the home and the church as factors in character building. And I have chosen for a text that old, old saying, Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6) Train the child early in life the way he should go. It is the responsibility of some to show that way.

We train by thoughts. There is no one common thing that we can give a child that will determine his future any more than there is any one common thing that a rich young ruler can do to determine the length of his life. There are many little things a child grows physically by: by eating at intervals, by breathing the fresh air regularly. So, character is built by the little things. By daily contacts. By a [2] truth here and a fact there. Sow a thought, reap an act; sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap an eternal destiny. The child is our center of thought this morning. Youth! Young men and young women facing their eternal destiny. What can we do to make them happy? What can we say and do to make them worthy citizens of our republic, and faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ? That is the question.

The world is passing through troublous times. Young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They talk as if they alone know everything. As for girls, they are forward, immodest, and unwomanly in speech, behavior, and dress. That is a terrific arraignment when we think of these young men and young women present in this group today and that they are representing many other hundreds and thousands of young people. Possibly some of you will say or will think that it is a pretty severe arraignment of our young people today. Others of you will consider it a real denunciation. Well, all of you will be surprised when I tell you that what I have just read was written about young people who lived six hundred and seventy-two years ago. That makes you feel better, does it? It was written in the year 1274 after Christ. I cited it merely to bring to our attention that we are prone to think that our own young folks are worse than anybody else and that they are heading for perdition as they have never been before.

Another purpose that I have in mind is that we might look with charity upon our young folks and try to enter into their lives and gain their confidence, and then we will find that they are not entirely bad. This is a fact to which we must not close our eyes: We have just passed [3] through a terrible experience in a world wide war and equally destructive to character is the fact that there is rampant in the intellectual world a disregard for fundamentals, particularly the truths of religion. Now, that condition has existed before undoubtedly but if it exists now we had better face the condition and see if we can remedy it.

There appeared in the Sunday School times, May 8, 1934, an article commenting upon the lawlessness in the United States since 1850. The writer had in mind the fact that we have digressed or departed from the religious ideals as set forth in the Bible. He gives us his view as follows:

In 1850 the character and culture of the American people demanded the respect of the entire world. European parents sent their sons and daughters to our institutions that they might imbibe this holy atmosphere. The Sabbath was nationally recognized and observed. The churches were well attended. Divorces were rare. Juvenile courts were unknown.

Today America is one of the most lawless of nations. The number of criminals at large and at work is greater than the combined number of soldiers and policemen, and criminal activities cost more than the entire appropriation for the army and navy. Of all crushing taxes that impede the economic recovery of the American people, the crime tax is the greatest. The cost of our crime has now reached the staggering sum of thirteen billion dollars a year, an amount equal to the entire revenue of the United States. Every year 12,000 persons are murdered, 3,000 are kidnaped; 100,000 are assaulted, and 50,000 are robbed. One out of every fi ve [sic] marriages ends in a divorce or an annulment.

What has happened to change this Christian concord of 1850 into this criminal chaos of 1934?

[4] Eighty years ago Americans were still being reared in public schools that included religious instruction. The great New England Primer, which for more than a hundred and fifty years had been the textbook of the American schools, was just passing into discard. Eighty-seven percent of the contents of this remarkable book which had built the sturdy character of fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers was Bible. But from that time on the Book of books ceased to be an important factor in public instruction.

Then he treats historically the fight that was waged against teaching of the Bible in the public schools as a result of which the teaching of the Bible was eliminated.

The result of this long, drawn-out school controversy was that both sides lost. Catholics lost their subsidies and were forced to support their own schools. Protestants lost the public teaching of their religion. Public school pupils lost the moral restraint that religion alone can impart. Churches lost many who would have become faithful members. The state found its tax burdens increased and its citizenship degenerating. The sad, sickening consequences of this Godless education can be studied today in the juvenile delinquents who throng our courts and fill our prisons.

Now, I have lead up to this note:

But the real tragedy in America is not that we have permitted the Bible to slip out of our public schools, but that we have so openly neglected to teach it in either the home or the Church. We lament the fact that Bolshevistic and Modernistic teachers have entered our colleges and other institutions of higher learning and misled our youth, when we should weep over our earlier failure to implant the Word of God in the heads of our boys and girls. One of our leading educators recently said: >That the Bible no longer holds the place it once did in the home is a [5] proposition that hardly needs proof.= Even before the world war, a prominent writer declared that family worship was so rare as to be almost phenomenal when found. I repeat, that was twelve years ago when the article appeared in the Sunday School Times. It is of that date.

I would like to bring this question up to date by quoting a few remarks from J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation made before the Annual Board Meeting of the Catholic Youth Organization, January 8, 1946:

Last evening, I had occasion to study detailed reports on the extent of crime in eleven of our most important and largest cities for the first ten months of 1945. The reports were startling! Six of the cities reported an increase in murders ranging as high as 115 per cent. Two cities reported no change and only three reported decreases. Each of the eleven cities reported increases in robberies, ranging as high as 161 per cent; nine reported increases in assaults up to 94 per cent; ten reported increases in larceny and auto thefts ranging as high as 26 per cent and 54 per cent, respectively.

The post-war crime wave which we feared is upon us. It is mounting in intensity. It is growing in severity. It is not isolated. It is nation-wide. In fact, other countries report a similar experience.

What is the cause and why the upswing? The same question is raised whenever a criminal career is emblazoned in newspaper headlines, which have been prone to understate rather than overstate. The answers have been complex and confused, profound and simple. But when you reduce the whole problem to fundamentals, the answer is simple. People for the most part commit crime because they do not have the moral stamina and the traits of character to withstand temptation. And war brings that temptation to them. There is little more to crime causation than the exercise of free will by intentional wrong-doing.

[6] Crime will always be with us, Mr. Hoover continued, The most we can hope to do is to minimize its extent. That we must do by readapting our programs to fit the changing times and meet new situations as they arise. But always we must come back to fundamentals. The fundamentals of life remain immutable. When they are tampered with, adulterated, twisted and distorted, disaster follows. That is a good message.

Yet, he continues, it is also fundamental that in periods of great national stress, such as we have just experienced, human nature reacts to the tempo of the times. There was the spirit of wartime abandon. You all felt it and saw it on the street. "With its last fling philosophy, which provided justification to less resolute wills to violate the conventions of society. Lessons in school became secondary. Girls sacrificed virtue on a false shrine of patriotism. Arrests for prostitution increased 375 per cent, disorderly conduct 557 per cent, and drunkenness and driving while intoxicated 174 per cent among girls under eighteen in the wartime years. To those who were not grounded in fundamentals, established values disappeared and an attitude of impermanence superseded individual responsibility. Conflicts between liberty and license manifested themselves in wrong-doing. Personal responsibility in too many homes has become archaic and old-fashioned [sic].

Now, I think Utah is no exception in this upward trend of lawlessness. That is a tragedy. In some respects Utah shows a great increase over the national as a whole. We were driven to investigate this when a Salt Lake officer called our attention to the number of young girls who had come into the city for war time employment and had failed to withstand the war wave of temptation. Robbery cases increased 40 per cent; assault cases, 70 per cent; rape cases that appeared in Utah cities over 25,000 population, 175 per cent. The tragic side of this whole picture is the fact that one out of every five persons arrested was under the age of twenty-one.

[7] I am going to give you an experience that I had with a young colt. I had great pleasure in training a well-bred colt. He had a good disposition, clean, well-rounded eye, was well proportioned, and all in all a choice, equine possession. Under the saddle he was as willing, responsive, and cooperative as a horse could be. He and my dog "Scotty" were real companions. I liked the way he would go up to something which he was afraid of. He had my confidence that it was alright, and when I would give him the reins and he would go up to some object which he had not seen before such as a stream, and he would go right through it.

But "Dandy" resented restraint. He was ill-contented when tied, and would nibble at the tie-rope until he was free. He would not run away, just wanted to be free. He would just hang around and feel that he could go away if he wanted to. Thinking other horses felt the same, he would proceed to untie their ropes. He hated to be confined in the pasture, and if he could find a place in the fence where there was only smooth wire, he would paw the wire carefully with his feet until he could step over to freedom. More than once my neighbors were kind enough to put him back in the field. He learned even to push open the gate. Though his depredations were provoking and sometimes expensive, I admired his intelligence and ingenuity.

But his curiosity and desire to explore the neighborhood led him and me into trouble. Once on the highway, he was hit by an automobile, resulting in a demolished machine, injury to the horse, and slight, though not serious, injury to the driver.

Recovering from that, and still impelled with a feeling of wanderlust, he inspected the fence throughout the entire boundary. He even found the gates wired. So, for awhile we thought we had "Dandy" restrained.

[8] One day, however, somebody left the gate unwired. Detecting this neglect, "Dandy" unlatched it, took "Hig", his companion with him, and together they visited the neighbor's field. They went to an old house used for storage. "Dandy's" curiosity prompted him to push open the door. Just as he had surmised, there was a sack of grain. What a find! Yes, and what a tragedy! The grain was poison bait for rodents! In a few minutes "Dandy" and "Hig" were in spasmodic pain, and shortly both were dead.

How like "Dandy" are many of our youth. They are not bad; they do not even intend to do wrong, but they are impulsive, full of life, full of curiosity, and long to do something, yearning to do something and to go somewhere. They, too, are restive under restraint, but if they are kept busy, guided carefully and rightly, they prove to be responsive and capable, but if left to wander unguided, they all too frequently find themselves in the environment of temptation and too often are entangled in the snares of evil.

To change men and nations, we must change and direct their way of thinking. Training a child in the way he should go. That is the problem. The home is the most potential influence in this training. Sunday Schools, Mutuals, Primaries, Relief Societies are only additions. No social, educational or service group could effectively supplant the home as an effective force in making men out of boys and women out of girls. Commenting on this phase of Child Health and Protection, former President Hoover said, After we have determined every scientific fact, after we have created every public safeguard, after we have constructed every edifice for education or training or hospitalization or play, yet all those things are but a tithe of the physical, moral, and spiritual gifts which motherhood gives and home confers. None of these things carry that [9] affection, that devotion of soul, which is the great endowment from mothers.

I know what you are thinking now. It is from the broken homes that these wanderers come. I know. And from homes in which motherhood has been debased. I know that, too. The other day a welfare worker brought a little boy and his sister into my home and said the mother was down in Bingham. I won't tell you the reason for her being in Bingham. Two little waifs father in the army and mother working in the gutter. I know when we are speaking of homes that there are broken homes, but let's not magnify them. As Latter-Day Saints it is our duty to present homes that are ideal. That is why I am mentioning this morning.

No man or child is happy in doing wrong. Nature herself teaches us that our actions are bound within certain limits. But, like the horse, we want to break away from those limits and go to the dangers beyond them, and boys and girls should sense that. Growth and happiness are found within certain restricted areas, beyond which lie painful inhibitions. There is pleasure and health in eating; but pain and sickness in gormandizing. There is pleasure in moderate exercise; pain in excessive exertion. In all things, nature says, "thus far shalt thou go and no further."

The home is the best place in the world to teach the child self-restraint, to give him happiness in self-control, and respect for the rights of others.

Unhappiness in the child's life, as in the adult life, springs largely from nonconformity to natural and social laws. The home is the best place in which to develop obedience which nature and society will later demand. I don't know who said this, but I will quote it to you: AA person's individuality is best safe-guarded and developed through con- [10] formity with social conventions; if he has learned the rules of the same, he may hope to modify them, but until he has learned them his attempts at modification will be amateurish. If these rules are never learned then personal individuality is cramped, and his happiness constricted.

So many of our youth today like to break away from conventions. They think their parents are old-fashioned [sic]. What a great lesson to learn that you are perfectly free to do as you please as long as you do not please to trespass upon the rights of somebody else. My heart aches this morning because one who was pretty close failed violated conventions in childhood broke through the fence found the poison grain and he died.

It is my opinion, and my opinion is confirmed by experience, that the best time for the child to learn these rules of conformity is between the ages of three and five. I made that statement once before and someone who reported it put it up between thirteen and fifteen. I mean three and five. If the mother does not get control of the child during those ages, she will find great difficulty in getting control later. It seems to me, then, easy to understand how the home contributes to the happiness of the child, first, by teaching obedience. I don't mean to push and drag or confine just let the little child be perfectly free to develop until he goes beyond the bounds of safety.

I do not like to bring up as an authority a monkey, but I saw that rule beautifully illustrated in the zoo in Los Angeles. For the first time in my life I saw a little three or four day old monkey and the mother was taking care of it and feeding it. Sister McKay and I were interested first in seeing the mother pat the little babe, trying to get it to go to sleep. It was more of a scratch than a pat. Soon the little monkey broke away from the mother and it began to climb up the cage. The mother paid no attention to the little one and let it climb [11] up until it got into danger and then she reached up and brought it back and let it play within the bounds of safety. I thought from nature that was one of the best lessons in control of childhood I had ever seen. The little one was given freedom until the danger was reached, and then he was gently restrained. Thus, we see the first contribution of the home to the happiness of the child. Second, by teaching it to be considerate of the rights of others; thrid [sic], as being a place where confidence and consolations are exchanged; and fourth, a place in which it serves as a haven of seclusion and rest from the worries and perplexities of life.

Beaconsfield was right when he said: The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and that upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends more than anything else the improvement of mankind. Such dwellings are the nursery of all domestic virtues, and without a becoming a home, the exercise of those virtues is impossible. A Scotch poet added to it when he said:

To make a happy fireside clime

To weans and wife,

That's the true pathos and sublime

O' human life.

But there are broken homes from which children come rambling into strange fields and have no will power to resist the evil. And there are children from well directed homes who break away find the gate unlocked and away they go to death. Many of these come to you Sunday School instructors, so you have to take the place of parent as well as teacher and guide.

The function of the Sunday School is to foster religious education. To inculcate moral and religious ideals in the lives of children was the dominant motive in the mind of Robert Raikes of Gloucestor, England when [12] he organized the first Sunday School at the close of the year 1781, when he took boys and girls off the street and taught them to read and write. The real purpose was not to teach them to read and write but to let them see that there is a spiritual world in this old physical world; that there is a spiritual happiness that exceeds the pleasures of the indulgence of appetites and passions.

The first Sunday School here in the West was held Sunday, December 9, 1849, in the home of Elder Richard Ballantyne. His motive for organizing it was to give children the privilege of Gospel teaching. There were 30 pupils enrolled and the number grew to 50 during the first year. Today there is a membership of about 350,000 souls, grouped in 2500 schools, presided over and taught by 31,373 officers and teachers, every one of whom gives his or her service gratuitously. There is a peek into the virility of Mormonism. Thirty-one thousand, three hundred and seventy-three men and women devoting fifty-two Sundays every year, and hours of study during each week, for the betterment of children and youth, training them to virtue; habituating them to industry, activity, and spirituality; making them consider every vice as shameful and unmanly; firing them with ambition to be useful; making them disdain to be destitute of any useful knowledge, and leading them into the joy of the Christ-life, into the friendship of God and the guidance of His Holy Spirit.

There is not a home in the Church, not an individual that may not and should not come within the radiance of one or more of these unselfish teachers. But the dimness or brightness, in other words, the worth of each school upon the boys and girls and upon the community depends first, upon the character, preparation and devotion of the officers and teachers; and secondly, upon the loyalty of the members and their desire and ability [13] to uphold the standards and ideals of the school. Appealing to our loyaltyCI find in my contact with youth that that is one of the great sources of appeal. Let me give you an example:

A boy wandered wanted to drive an automobile and took it. I happened to get in touch with him. It was my automobile. I appealed to his loyalty. I said, Now, look here, young man, if you do not go to the reform school my reputation is at stake as well as yours. I am responsible. He said, AI won't let you down. And he has not. Get the young boys to be loyal to their schools and communities and best of all to their homes. Let them feel that the parents trust them; that if the children do anything wrong, then the parents suffer.

Never before in the history of our country was the state in greater need of young men and young women who cherish the higher life in preference to the sordid, the selfish, and the obscene. What the opinions of the youth are today regarding life and its objectives will determine what the moral standard of the nation will be tomorrow. Here let me quote again what the statistician Babson says: The coming generation can see in a minute more than the former generation could see in a week. The coming generation can out-hear and out-travel the former generation. Horse-power is expanded beyond all dreams, but what about manpower, what about spiritual power, and the power of judgment, discretion, and self-control? Unless there is a development of character equal to this enlargement of physical forces there is sure trouble ahead. Twenty-five years ago an intoxicated man might tip a buggy over, but commonly the old horse would bring him home. Today a driver under the influence of liquor maims and kills; tomorrow, therefore, is something to ponder over. Without moral progress in pace with physical progress the airplane will merely make dissipation more disastrous, immorality more widespread, and crime more efficient. As one result has been to put hell on wheels, the airplane [14] will put hell on wings unless righteousness too is speeded up. On the development of character depends whether the airplane shall bring prosperity or calamity. And that may be applied now to the splitting of the atom.

Mormon schools and churches should radiate the fact that there are in life certain fundamentals which never change, and which are essential to the happiness of every human soul. Some of these fundamentals are honor, integrity, fair-dealing.

There stood before Judge Johnson a young culprit who had been caught but before he was sentenced a friend stood beside that boy. He was an officer. He said, Judge, let me have him. Judge Johnson said, All right; what are you going to do with him? He said, AI will find him half workCa half day's work and let him go to school. All right, said the Judge, he is your charge.

Well, ten days later the boy was there again. He had been in temptation and could not resist. And so was the officer who had vouched for him. The Judge said, Well, my boy, you have broken your pledge. Yes, the boy said, and that's worse than the thing I have taken. And he broke down and cried and turned to the officer and said, Do you want to try me again? You are right! I will trust you. Come on! said the officer. It is an appeal. The boy has made good or had done when that officer died and I believe he is keeping his pledge of honor. That is a fundamental that has never changed. With it is fair dealing and integrity. Another fundamental that never changes is kindness. Kindness to animals, to children, and to mankind generally.

"He prayeth best who loveth best

All things both great and smallC

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.

It is a wicked thing to torment and to torture a dumb thing.

[15] Another fundamental that never changes is reverence. Profanity on the part of a parent I think is reprehensible. I think a parent may kneel in prayer but if after he rises from his knees and in the presence of his children he profanes the name of God, I think he is wicked. Reverence is a high, substantial virtue. I place it next to love itself.

We can appeal to children in Sunday School and Primary. We can appeal to youth in Mutual to be reverent when they come into the house of God. We can ask them to speak of His name in reverence. When we pray we say, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. That is a fundamental which we must not disregard.

If the boys think there is no God, if they have never prayed to Him in their home, then the Sunday School has the responsibility to teach the existence of that Being; that He is near to us if we can approach Him properly. But there is a wall between us if we defy Him and are irreverent. That is why our class room should be more silent. Busy, humming with industry and thought, yes, but reverent. Another fundamental in that connection is that God will speak to his children.

It is a good thing for boys and girls to learn that they can go to God and pray. You students in the University will learn that C students in every school should learn that you have difficulties as great as any that you have in life and you will need help. Perhaps you will arise as some of us did in youth and feel that your prayers aren't answered, but someday you will rise to the fact that God did answer your prayers just as a wise parent would have done. That is one of the greatest possessions of youth to feel that you can go to the Father and pour out your heart to him. Right associated with that is [16] the fundamental fact that God has revealed the Gospel of Jesus Christ in this day to the Prophet Joseph. Here is an example of that ecclesiastical organizationCa result of that revelation.

Another fundamental is the value of the human soul. That little ragged, barefoot boy is precious in God's sight. Yes, and that poor woman is, too. That spirit of brotherhoodC that we are all brothers concerns us all. No boy or no girl can risk or do or gratify his or her passions without affecting his entire society.

It is not the will of your Father that one of these little ones should perish.

Today, youth is prone to ignore conventions, and follow without restraint what the fiery blood of passion prompts. They must be taught that there comes a tomorrow in which the wild expenditures of youth must inevitably be paid. Love is a most vital factor in a man's or a woman's life. To trifle with it by forming philandering habits might contribute to unhappiness and tragedy in married life. It is unfortunate if a girl gets the reputation of being everybody's sweetheart; or if a boy be looked upon as one who would disregardingly stain a woman's character to gratify his own passionate desires. Teach them the fundamental that clean fatherhood and pure motherhood are the greatest responsibilities of life.

Well, you are not teaching that directly in your Sunday School classes are you? I think we will have to teach more. I have mentioned it here because it is the duty of parents even more than the duty of teachers and officers to get the confidence of their boys and girls so that those boys and girls will give the teachers their confidence. And you will find that that which motivates them most effectively touches this spring of love. The boy will tell you what he heard up there in school by a teacher who himself is probably unchaste. In his mind he is poisoned. He will tell you, Boys it is an indulgence that [17] will develop your manhood. Boys it is not indulgence while you are in your youthful period that will develop your manhood. It is morality in youth. Women, it is not the loss of your virtue that will win the love of a man whose love you long for. It is modesty. The protection of that which is most vital in a woman's life. Young man, your greatest responsibility is to keep the spring of life unpolluted. Do not let them tell you that you will weaken your character if you inhibit a desire. You can explain to him how nature will take care of that strength through the channels of intellectual and physical activity.

I mention this because sometimes we parents have difficulty in getting to discuss life with our boys. We should do it when we are riding in the automobile or going up on the farm. Be companions with them. I know we should do it, but you teachers do it when we parents have not. Teach the boys that it is chastity during youth that gives vigor, strength and virility of manhood. Teach the girls that chastity is the groundwork of beautiful womanhood. And when young men and young women learn that and are joined in holy matrimony with a love that turns their hearts together, it is the memory of that kind of life which contributes to the happiness of the home. Not the memory of philandering or the suspicion of being unfaithful to youth. Instead, a memory that they come together as God would have them, prepared to go through life as parents worthy of pure children. It is chastity that contributes to the perpetuation and virility of the race. It is not indulgence.

Well, brothers and sisters, I will conclude with this reference of Jean Val Jean: One day Jean Val Jean saw some country folks very busy pulling up nettles; he looked at the heap of plants, uprooted, and already wilted, and said: This is dead; but it would be well if we knew [18] how to put it to some use. When the nettle is young the leaves make excellent greens; when it grows old it has filaments and fibers like hemp and flax. Cloth made from the nettle is worth as much as thatmade [sic] from hemp. Chopped up, the nettle is good for poultry; pounded, it is good for horned cattle. The seed of the nettle mixed with the fodder of animals gives a luster to their skin; the root mixed with salt produces a beautiful yellow dye. It makes, moreover, excellent hay, as it can be cut twice in a season. And what does the nettle need? Very little soil, no care, no culture, except that the seeds fall as fast as they ripen, and it is difficult to gatherthem [sic]; that is all. If we would take a little pains the nettle would be useful; we neglect it, and it becomes harmful. Then we kill it. How much then are men like the nettle!= After a short pause, he added, >My friends, remember this, that there are no bad herbs and no bad men; there are only bad cultivators!=

That may be extreme but I mention it to impress us all with the responsibility of guiding the children and youth. And the Sunday School and other auxiliaries offer the opportunity to guide these young men and young women. But the responsibility of parents there is to see that the boys and girls are put in the environment of these meetings. We cannot shun it.

I am going to conclude with that little simple rhymeCit isn't poetry given to our Deacons, again with the view of emphasizing responsibility and again with the child the center of our efforts:

He stood at the cross-roads all alone

The sun light in his face

He had no thought for the world unknown,

He was set for a manly race.

[19] But the road stretched East

And the road stretched West

And the lad knew not which road was best

And he chose the road which lead him down

And he lost the race and victor's crown.

He was caught at length

In an angry snare

Because no one stood at the cross-roads

To show him the better way.

I would like to repeat that because I have a boy in mind who found that road and in the angry snare, whipped out his pistol and spent the rest of his life in the penitentiary. As Dandy, he had gone too far and had found the poison and died.

"Another day at the self-same spot

Another lad stood.

He too was set for a manly race

He too was seeking the things that were good.

But one was there

Who the roads did know

And that one showed him

Which way to go.

So, he took the road

That led him to success

He found the way and it

Led him into security and peace.

Because one was there to show him the

Better way.

God inspire us to stand at the cross-reads and lead youth upward in the presence of God, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

McKay, David O. The Home and the Church--Factors in Character Building. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Leadership Convention, Feb. 5, 1946. Photocopied.

(See BYU Special Collections, Index of Lectures and Addresses on file in University Archives)