Ten Commandments
I believe with all my soul in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and in the law of God, and I do not think any honest and intelligent man or woman could help but believe in the justice, the righteousness and the purity of the laws that God wrote upon the tablets of stone., These principles that I propose to read to you are the foundation and basic principles of the Constitution of our country, and are eternal, enduring forevermore, and cannot be changed nor ignored with impunity:
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"And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
That is what it means now, and what it meant to the Latter-day Saints, and what the Latter-day Saints understood it to mean, when they embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ.
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." He is the Father of our spirits, the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who is our God; and we shall not have any other before him.
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
"Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments." (Exodus 20:1-6.)
Infidels will say to you: "How unjust, how unmerciful, how un-Godlike it is to visit the iniquities of the parents upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate God." How do you see it? This way: and it is strictly in accordance with God’s law. The infidel will impart infidelity to his children if he can. The whoremonger will not raise a pure, righteous posterity. He will impart seeds of disease and misery, if not of death and destruction, upon his offspring, which will continue upon his children and descend to his children’s children to the third and fourth generation. It is perfectly natural that the children should inherit from their fathers, and if they sow the seeds of corruption, crime and loathsome disease, their children will reap the fruits thereof. Not in accordance with God’s wishes, for his wish is that men will not sin and therefore will not transmit the consequences of their sin to their children, but that they will keep his commandments, and be free from sin and from entailing the effects of sin upon their offspring; but inasmuch as men will not hearken unto the Lord, but will become a law unto themselves, and will commit sin, they will justly reap the consequences of their own iniquity, and will naturally impart its fruits to their children to the third and fourth generation. The laws of nature are the laws of God who is just; it is not God that inflicts these penalties, they are the effects of disobedience to his law. The results of men’s own acts follow them.
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."
This is an eternal principle; it is not one that we may obey today and disobey tomorrow, or that we may espouse today as a part of our faith, and abandon tomorrow with impunity. It is a principle that is inherent in the plan of life and salvation, for the regeneration of mankind.
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates," etc.
That is: Thou shalt honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Do we do it? Is it necessary to do it? It is absolutely necessary to do so in order that we may be in harmony with God’s law and commandments; and whenever we transgress that law or that commandment we are guilty of transgressing the law of God. And what will be the result, if we continue? Our children will follow in our footsteps; they will dishonor the command of God to keep one day holy in seven; and will lose the spirit of obedience to the laws of God and his requirements, just as the father will lose it if he continues to violate the commandments.
"Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."
When will we ever outgrow that command? When can we set it aside? When shall we reach the time that we can dishonor our father and mother? Never! It is an eternal principle, and I am sorry to say-not sorry for the Japs and for the Chinese-these heathen nations, as we have been in the habit of calling them-I am not sorry for them, but for the comparison with them. Those heathen nations set the civilized Christian world an example in the honor they bestow upon their parents, and yet this Christian people and nation and all the Christian nations of the earth, who have the word of the Lord, and the counsels of the Son of God for their guidance, are not leading out in setting an example of obedience, as they should, to this great commandment of the Lord, "Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."
Again, "Thou shalt not kill." That is a command of God. It is irrevocable, unless he revokes it; you and I can’t revoke it; we must not transgress it; it is binding upon us, we should not take away the life we cannot restore or give back. It is an eternal, unchangeable law.
"Thou shalt not commit adultery." Just as unchangeable! just as eternal! for the adulterer hath no place in the kingdom of God, nor can he attain to an exaltation there.
"Thou shalt not steal."
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s." (Exodus 20:7-17.)
"Thou shalt not covet." We may say we are thankful that the Lord has blessed our neighbor above that which he has blessed us. We may be thankful that the Lord has given to our neighbor greater wisdom and ability to honestly gather to himself. But we should not covet it. We should not be envious, because we are commanded not to be.
Now, these are the commandments of God, the principles contained in these commandments of the great Eternal are the principles that underly the Constitution of our country, and all just laws. Joseph Smith, the prophet, was inspired to affirm and ratify this truth, and he further predicted that the time would come, when the Constitution of our country would bang as it were by a thread, and that the Latter-day Saints, above all other people in the world, would come to the rescue of that great and glorious palladium of our liberty. We cannot brook the thought of it being torn into shreds, or destroyed, or trampled under foot and ignored by men. We cannot tolerate the sentiment, at one time expressed, by a man high in authority in the nation. He said: "The constitution be damned; the popular sentiment of the people is the constitution!" That is the sentiment of anarchism, and has spread to a certain extent, and is spreading over "the land of liberty and the home of the brave." We do not tolerate it. Latter-day Saints cannot tolerate such a spirit as this. It is anarchy. It means destruction. It is the spirit of mobocracy, and the Lord knows we have suffered enough from mobocracy, and we do not want any more of it. Our people from Mexico are suffering from the effects of that same spirit. We do not want any more of it, and we cannot afford to yield to that spirit or contribute to it in the least degree. We should stand with a front like flint against every spirit or species of contempt or disrespect for the constitution of our country and the constitutional laws of our land.-Oct. C. R., 1912, pp. 8-11.