Let us avoid debt as we would avoid a plague...Let every head of every household see to it that he has on hand enough food and clothing, and, where possible, fuel also, for at least a year ahead...Let every head of household aim to own his own home, free from mortgage. Let us again clothe ourselves with these proved and sterling virtues-honesty, truthfulness, chastity, sobriety, temperance, industry, and thrift; let us discard all covetousness and greed.

Do you know that all of the money that we are spending, that the government is spending, must come from you? The government has no great pile of gold to which it can go to get what it gives you. The government has not one cent that it does not take from your pockets. Do not imagine, do not believe, do not go on the theory that you are not to pay this bill, unless the fundamentals of our government are to be overturned.

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.

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.

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.

I am persuaded, from all the facts that have come to me, that it would have been possible, if we had functioned as the Lord intended us to function, if we had paid our tithes and our offerings as the Lord intended us to pay them, we might have gone on without one dollar from our federal government. And has it ever occurred to you what a mighty influence we should have exercised for good and for respect and for all of the virtues that we have been taught, and that God has commanded us to exercise and cultivate and practice, if we had just followed along what he has asked us to do?

May the Lord be with us at all times, under all circumstances; may he bring into our lives a burning desire to uphold the Constitution, a living faith in its inspired origin, that we may always be found among those who shall support it to the last breath.