Exclamations, not questions. Tags | Authors | Callings
Some years ago I was in Japan visiting the servicemen on the northern island of Hokiado. A young man was called to speak in one of the services. He was a tall, handsome, curly haired young man and took the text that I have just quoted from the Master's prayer, 'I pray that thou wilt keep us from evil.' He delivered a great sermon on the subject of chastity. He closed by saying, 'Rather than lose my virtue I would rather die and have my body sent home in a pine box and my dog tags follow after.' Then he bore his testimony and as he started to walk away from the pulpit he staggered and fell over the pulpit in a dead faint. As we lifted him off the pulpit and worked over him, the mission president turned to me and said, 'I wonder if he has a bad heart?' I said, 'I think I detected something in that young man while he was speaking. There seemed to be something contending inside him against what he was saying.' Later I said to him, 'Young man, you've made a great impression upon us when you said that rather than lose your virtue you would rather die and have your body sent home in a pine box and your dog tags follow after. But son, the devil heard you just as well as we heard you, and if I don't miss my guess, you may almost have to give your life in order to keep yourself morally clean.' I learned that just before we came he had been tempted to go into the wicked city near one of the air bases in the northern part of Hokiado. Filthy women were plying their trade trying to trap these young men into their filthy clutches... The last time I saw him he was coming up the aisle with a lovely girl holding onto his arm and in his arms there was a bundle of loveliness—a beautiful new babe... In the baby's veins there was no tainted blood because through the graces and mercies of good friends and the fact that a mother was praying for him, and that he had been taught to keep the commandments, he had now escaped the clutches of the power of evil.
- Harold B. Lee (President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles)
1970, Youth and the Church, pg 228
 
This quote is tagged sexuality, racism
This is quote 00295; a permanent link to this quote is here.