That conceit, elegantly expressed by the Emperor Charles V., in his instructions to the King, his son, "that fortune hath somewhat the nature of a woman, that if she be too much wooed she is the farther off.
Religions are all founded on miracles - on things we cannot understand, such as the Trinity. Jesus calls himself the Son of God, and yet is descended from David. I prefer the religion of Mahomet - it is less ridiculous than ours.
But say That death be not one stroke, as I supposed, Bereaving sense, but endless misery From this day onward, which I feel begun Both in me, and without me, and so last To perpetuity; ay me, that fear Comes thund'ring back with dreadful revolution On my defenceless head; both Death and I Am found eternal, and incorporate both, Nor I on my part single, in me all Paradise Lost Posterity stands cursed: fair patrimony That I must leave ye, sons; O were I able To waste it all myself, and leave ye none!
Ye poor posterity, think not that ye are the first. Other fools before ye have seen the sun rise and set, and the moon change her shape and her hour. As they were so ye are; and yet not so great; for the pyramids my people built stand to this day; whilst the dustheaps on which ye slave, and which ye call empires, scatter in the wind even as ye pile your dead sons' bodies on them to make yet more dust.
Recently, I took my son to see The Haunted Mansion, which was one of the worst things (I hesitate even to call it a movie) that I have ever seen. He thought it was better than Finding Nemo and we had a fruitless argument which I'm sure made him acutely aware of the disadvantages of having a film critic for a dad.
Boyhood is a most complex and incomprehensible thing. Even when one has been through it, one does not understand what it was. A man can never quite understand a boy, even when he has been the boy.
. . . an absurd problem came to the surface: 'How COULD God permit that (crucifixion of Jesus Christ)!' . . . the deranged reason of the little community found quite a frightfully absurd answer: God gave his Son for forgiveness, as a SACRIFICE . . . The SACRIFICE FOR GUILT, and just in its most repugnant and barbarous form - the sacrifice of the innocent for the sins of the guilty! What horrifying heathenism!
Our sires' age was worse than our grandsires'. We their sons are more worthless than they: so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt.
May we incorporate into our own lives the divine principles which he Joseph Smith so beautifully taught by example, that we, ourselves, might live more completely the gospel of Jesus Christ. . . May our lives reflect the knowledge we have that God lives, that Jesus Christ is His son, that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that we are led today by another prophet of God - even President Gordon B. Hinckley.
America has invested her religion as well as her morality in sound income-paying securities. She has adopted the unassailable position of a nation blessed because it deserves to be blessed; and her sons, whatever other theologies they may affect or disregard, subscribe unreservedly to this national creed.