Topic: Public Duty, Matches 3 quotes.

The world needs the help of those who have recognized and received the gospel of the kingdom. The world needs their inspiration and active participation in the affairs of life. We are an inspired people. That I know as well as I know that I live. We are responsible for the proper use of this inspiration. This inspiration is not confined to our spiritual lives but carries over into all temporal responsibilities, and included therein is our moral, our civic, our political, our social, our financial responsibilities. We stand ready to exercise this divine guidance together with the power of our priesthood in behalf of a neighbor, as well as in our own behalf. We look upon the children of our Heavenly Father as our brothers and sisters, no matter where they live, or what they believe, or what their ancestry may be. We cannot expect to do our full duty as we are inspired to do unless we can live and work in an environment of love, of peace of freedom—freedom at home and throughout the world.

Plato has put into words that the spirit of freedom is not a matter of laws and constitutions. "Only he is free," Plato says, "who realizes the divine order within himself, the true standard by which a man can steer himself." And I say true standards, ideals that lift life up, mark the way of true progress. Such ideals followed will never permit our light to be extinguished.

Pericles said: "But we regard him who holds aloof from public affairs as useless." They called the useless man a "private" citizen, idiots from which our word idiot comes. The citizens of the kingdom of God should set the pattern for the citizens of the kingdoms of men.

A reflective Roman traveling in Greece in the second century, A.D. said, "None ever throve under democracy save the Athenians. They had self-control and were law-abiding." That is what Athenian education aimed at, to produce men who would be able to maintain a self-governed state because they were themselves self-governed, self-controlled, self-reliant. It is said of the Athenians, "We yield to none in independence of spirit and complete self-reliance."

Source: Elder Henry D. Moyle
General Conference, April 1959

Topics: Citizenship; Public Duty; Self Control

If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival.

There may be even a worse fate. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.

Source: Winston Churchill

Topics: Duty; Public Duty

It is now more than 2,000 years ago since the Lord called the Prophet Ezekiel, the son of Buzi, commanding him to go and proclaim his word to the house of Israel. The Israelitish people had departed from faith in the God of their fathers and had turned to the worship of idols. Ezekiel, in obedience to the commandments of the Lord, went out to the people who dwelt upon the river Chebar and abode with them sever days. He was amazed at their wickedness, their idolatry, and he hesitated, reluctant to deliver the message which the Lord had commanded him to take to them.

Ezekiel Rebuked

At the end of that time the Lord rebuked him and said to him:

“Son of man, I have made time a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me.

“When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life: the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.

“Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.”

Responsibility Of Leadership

I have often read these words of the prophet and have asked myself this question, What is their application to you? What is the responsibility that you are under in the capacity which you occupy in the Church and in the nation? The answer has always been the same. It is this, that whatever my profession, whether it be as a citizen of the government to which I have given allegiance, or a member of the Church with which I am affiliated, it becomes my duty to magnify in my life and to teach others to do so, the ideals for which my country stands, and the creed which my Church teaches. If I fail in this and lead others away from loyalty to their country or devotion to the truths of religion, I assume the responsibility of not only being a violator of the laws made for the protection and temporal welfare of the citizens, but of the law of God which has been given to us for the salvation of our souls.

This places upon me, if I properly understand it, and upon every other person who assumes the responsibility of leadership, whether it be in the Church or state, a tremendous responsibility, a responsibility which I always feel when I stand before a congregation of my brethren and sisters, as I do now, upon occasions of this kind, and I always feel the necessity of dependence upon the Lord and upon you, my brethren and sisters, for help.

Source: President Anthony W. Ivins
General Conference, October 1932

Topics: Public Duty

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