What we get, we members of the Church, compared with the total mass that is distributed, is almost microscopic, but the spirit in which we might take it, the spirit in which we might spend it, is the leaven that might leaven the whole lump. Let us be patriotic; let us love the government under which we live.
J. Reuben ClarkThat 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.
J. Reuben ClarkDebt never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation...it is never laid off work...it buys no food; it wears no clothes; it is unhoused... it has neither weddings nor births nor deaths; it has no love, no sympathy; it is as hard and soulless as a granite cliff. Once in debt, it is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it...and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you.
J. Reuben ClarkEighteen months ago, when first I stood before you I called attention, as earnestly and seriously as I knew how, to what looked to me to be the dangers that were ahead, and I urged you at that time to practice the old virtues of thrift, of honesty, of truthfulness, of industry, and so on through the list of those I named. All that I said then I say again.
J. Reuben ClarkWe 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.
J. Reuben ClarkLet 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.
J. Reuben ClarkOne year ago, on this occasion, I called your attention to the abuses that had crept into the distribution of our public funds, and I urged you and pleaded with you that, so far as the Church and its membership were concerned, we do not soil our hands with the bounteous outpouring of funds which the government was giving unto us. I renew that plea now. My brethren and sisters, for the sake of the government which we love, for the sake of the government which we believe was divinely inspired, be honest with it. Be honest, just ordinarily gold honest. That is all I ask.
J. Reuben Clark