Let us avoid debt as we would avoid a plague; where we are now in debt, let us get out of debt; if not today...tomorrow.

We may first observe that communism and socialism - which we shall hereafter group together and dub Statism - cannot live with Christianity nor with any religion that postulates a Creator such as the Declaration of Independence recognizes. The slaves of Statism must know no power, no authority, no source of blessing, no God, but the State.

It is the eternal, inescapable law that growth comes only from work and preparation, whether the growth be material, mental, or spiritual. Work has no substitute.

That man has a spiritual body is evidenced by the account . . . given in the writings of Moses that man was created spiritually in heaven before he was given a natural body.

We are met today in a general conference. Sometimes, I hear, the people feel, some of them, that perhaps we are not quite as "peppy" as we ought to be. But this is not a Church convention. This is a general conference where we meet for general counsel and advice. It is a place to which we come for the results of the reflective operations of our minds.

Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels.

You have the highest of human trusts committed to your care. Providence has showered on this favored land blessings without number, and has chosen you as the guardians of freedom, to preserve it for the benefit of the human race. May He who holds in his hands the destinies of nations, make you worthy of the favors He has bestowed, and enabled you with pure hearts and hands and sleepless vigilance, to guard and defend to the end of time, the great charge He has committed to your keeping.