"We seldom get into trouble when we speak softly. It is only when we raise our voices that the sparks fly and tiny molehills become great mountains of contention."
Several
years ago I was rambling around in the Church’s Conference
Reports and found a delightful story told by President Heber J.
Grant during the April conference of 1942. I loved it because it
illustrates the wisdom of President John Taylor and two apostles as
they approached a difficult human challenge.
John
Taylor was sustained as President of the Church during the October
1880 General Conference. Francis M. Lyman and John Henry Smith were
sustained as new apostles at the same conference.
The
next apostle to be sustained, in October 1882, was Heber J. Grant. He
became President of the Church in November 1918. This story
apparently took place not long after Elder Grant was appointed.
It
might be said that, in a way, the new apostle was learning something
by watching the two older apostles struggle with how to deal with a
tough assignment and by President Taylor’s wisdom and
inspiration in making assignments. Here is the story:
I
shall take the time to relate one more incident. Never did Brother
Taylor direct the course of the apostles without inspiration, neither
did Brother Woodruff, nor Brother Snow, nor Brother Joseph F. Smith.
God to my knowledge inspired those men and directed them.
Brothers
Francis M. Lyman and John Henry Smith were told by President John
Taylor to go to some town — I shall not mention where it is —
and to have a man sustained as the president of the stake.
Undoubtedly there are some of you men who know where it was, I won't
give the name — I won't tell that.
Brother
Lyman said: "Why, Brother Taylor, I know this brother, and I
know that the people will not sustain him."
Brother
Taylor said: "You and Brother John Henry Smith are called upon a
mission to have him voted for and sustained as president."
Brother
Lyman later in the day said: "Suppose these people won't sustain
that man, what are we to do?"
Brother
Taylor said: "But you are called upon a mission to have him
sustained; that is what you are to do."
Brother
Lyman brought it up again a third time and Brother Taylor said: "Do
you understand English? Don't you know what mission I have placed
upon you two men? It is to have him sustained."
Later
in the day Brother John Henry thought the president had not
thoroughly considered the matter, and he brought it up.
Brother
Taylor said: "Didn't you hear what I said to Lyman? You two men
are called to go to that place and have the people sustain this man."
Brother
Lyman gave me the credit of feeding him more meals and giving him
more opportunity to sleep in my house than all the rest of his
relatives in Salt Lake City combined. He made my home his home during
the two years that I presided in Tooele, and after I became an
apostle he made my home his home whenever he came in to Salt Lake
from Tooele.
As
we came past the president's office after our meeting in the
Endowment House, he said: "Heber, President Taylor does not
understand the condition; those people have rebelled and they will
not sustain this man. He was busy with our regular meeting, and he
did not get it into his head that it cannot be done. I will step in
here. You tell your wife I will be a little late, but don't delay
your dinner until I get there. Go home and eat it, and I will come
along later."
I
said: "I will wait for you." I thought it wouldn't be long.
He
came out in a moment and said: "I wish I had not gone to see the
president. Heber, fast and pray for us; I do not see how under heaven
we can change this condition. All the bishops and their counselors,
the high council, the patriarch, and the presidency of the high
priests quorum have requested that this good brother be dropped and
that they have another president. Brother John and I will have to
pray all the way from Milford until we get to the place."
When
they arrived, Brother Lyman brought all these people together who had
signed the petition and said: "Now, brethren, we do not want a
great number of you men to confess the president's mistakes, but we
will step out of the room, and you appoint one man to do the talking.
You tell him everything you can think of against the president. If he
has forgotten anything, give him a chance to speak again, and then we
will come back and hear it all. We have come here to fix up things,
and we are going to do just what you people want us to do."
When
they got into the other room John Henry said: "For heaven's
sake, Lyman, did you lose your head? They want a new president, they
have signed their names for a new president."
Brother
Lyman said: "Well, it must have been a slip of the tongue. We
will have to pray just that much harder."
When
the man who had been selected to be their spokesman got through with
his talk of nearly an hour, Brother Lyman said: "Has he
forgotten anything?"
They
said: "No, he has told the truth."
Brother
Lyman said: "Well, that is marvelous. We had never dreamed that
this man had so many faults and failings. Really, if there is
somebody who would like to tell something good about him we would
like to hear it."
A
man got up and said: "I can say something good about him, about
his generosity, his liberality." Then he commenced weeping, and
said: "Brother Lyman, will you scratch my name off that list and
let me vote for him."
Brother
Lyman said: "All right. Does anybody else feel that way?"
About one-third of them got up.
He
said: "Well, you may go home, it is rather late, and the others
of us will discuss this matter further."
He
then said to the spokesman: "Get up and tell that story again,
because it is news to us; we never dreamed this brother had so many
failings."
So
the man got up and told it over again.
Another
man jumped up and said: "Brother Lyman, please take my name off
that list. Let me vote for him."
Brother
Lyman said: "All right. Does anybody else feel that way?"
About half of them stood up.
He
said: "All right. Your folks are wondering why you are out so
late; we will excuse you."
Then
he said to this man again: "Now get up and tell us that story
again."
The
man got up and told the story once more.
Brother
Lyman said: "Two men have tried to tell something good about
this man and failed, but have asked permission to vote for him
tomorrow. Is there anybody else here who feels to sustain him?"
And they all stood up.
He
said: "All right. Good night, brethren." And he turned to
John Henry and said: "John, will you sustain him?"
John
laughed and said: "I will." By this time I think it was
after half past twelve or one o'clock in the morning. The next
morning Brother Lyman was able to say to the people: "All of the
bishops and their counselors, the high council, the patriarch, the
presidency of the high priests quorum, every one of them has asked
permission to vote for Brother So and So as the president of your
stake, and we have agreed to let them do so. If any of you want to
vote the other way there will be no condemnation."
They
got a unanimous vote to sustain that man as president of the stake.
When
Brothers Lyman and Smith returned they made their report of what had
happened. Brother Taylor, when something pleased him immensely, used
to shake his body and laugh; and he said:
"Twins,
twins, twins, (he nearly always called those two men twins) it wasn't
such a hard job after all, was it? Now, this brother is a
big-hearted, fine man, but he makes mistakes. He is sick abed now,
and he never would have recovered, he would have died a
broken-hearted man if he had not been sustained. He will be well in
three months and feeling fine. Go down there and put your arm around
him and say: 'Now that the people are loving you and have unanimously
sustained you, don't you think it would be well to resign?' and he
will jump at the chance and you assume the authority to accept his
resignation."
And
that is how it worked out.
President
Grant told this story toward the end of a long sermon mostly devoted
to personal experiences that demonstrated to him how the Lord
continued to direct Church leaders, blessing them with insight,
wisdom, and foresight.
He
told of his intimate acquaintance with Brigham Young and each of the
presidents of the Church since him, emphasizing “that they were
inspired, wonderful men, that they had no ambition of any kind or
description but to lead the Latter-day Saints in the paths of
righteousness, to set examples worthy of imitation in all respects.
They were in very deed men of God.”
One
example had to do with the heavy financial burdens of the Church and
his involvement, under the direction of the Church president, in
solving them.
The
story of how Elders Lyman and Smith got a stake president sustained
and then released with honor rather than under a cloud may seem much
less significant than some of the tremendous problems Church leaders
had to face more than a century ago. But in its own way it is just as
significant.
Local
leadership is at the heart of the success of the Church. In that
sense, respect for local leaders is tremendously important. So is the
morale of the leaders themselves.
In
this case, the stake president could have been released under a cloud
with his morale and feeling of self-worth devastated. As it turned
out, he was sustained, his self-confidence remained intact, and he
was later released with honor and good feelings. Equally important,
other local leaders learned an important lesson that should be an
example to all of us.
At
first they had nothing good to say about the struggling stake
president, but as the meeting progressed they all gradually realized
that there was much good in him and that he did not deserve the
treatment they were so anxious to give him. Hopefully they also
learned something about patience and forgiveness and that, in the
long run, they could expect inspired decisions to help resolve their
concerns.
Certainly
they had legitimate concerns for the well-being of the stake, and it
was not wrong for them to bring them to the General Authorities of
the Church. But as they garnered a list of all the president’s
faults they seemed to forget, at first, that God is also concerned
about the well-being of individuals.
Hopefully
they learned a lesson and hopefully, too, such a story can teach each
of us something about understanding, patience, and forgiveness.
JAMES B. ALLEN, Professor of History, Emeritus, Brigham Young University
James B. Allen was born June 14, 1927, in Ogden, Utah. He married Renée Jones, April 16,
1953. They have five children, twenty-one grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren . He
received his bachelor's degree in history form Utah State University in 1954, a master's degree
from Brigham Young University in 1956, and the Ph.D. from the University of Southern
California in 1963.
Active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints all his life, he has served in numerous
positions, including bishop of two BYU wards and a member of 5 different BYU high councils.
In 1999-2000 he and Renée served as missionaries at the Boston Institute of Religion.
He has also been active in the Republican party and twice served as a delegate to the state
convention.
In his professional career, he taught in the LDS Seminary and Institute program from 1954-63,
after which he was a member of the faculty at Brigham Young University until his retirement in
1992. From 1972 to 1979 he also served as Assistant Church Historian (splitting his time
between BYU and the Church Historical Department). He was chair of the History Department
from 1981-1987 then, during his last five years at BYU, he was honored to hold the Lemuel
Hardison Redd, Jr. Chair in Western American History. After his retirement he became
associated with the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History at BYU, where
for several years he held an appointment as a Senior Research Fellow.
He has also been active in various professional organizations, including the Western History
Association (served on various committees, and as chair of a program committee) and the
Mormon History Association (president, 1971-73). He has been on various boards of editors and
advisory committees and presented numerous papers at the meetings of various historical
associations.
As a researcher and writer he is the author, co-author, or co-editor of fourteen books or
monographs and around 90 articles relating to Western American history and Mormon history,
as well as numerous book reviews in professional journals. Some of his books include the
following:
The Company Town in the American West (University of Oklahoma Press, 1966)
The Story of the Latter-day Saints (with Glen M. Leonard; Deseret Book Company, 1976;
2nd edition 1992)
Trials of Discipleship: The Story of William Clayton, a Mormon (University of Illinois
Press, 1987). Revised and republished in 2002 by BYU Press under the title No
Toil Nor Labor Fear: The Story of William Clayton. In 1986, while still in press,
this book won the prestigious David Woolley Evans and Beatrice Cannon Evans
Biography Award.
Men With a Mission: The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the British Isles, 1837-1841
(with Ronald K. Esplin and David J. Whittaker, Deseret Book Company, 1992)
Studies in Mormon History 1830-1997: An Indexed Bibliography (with Ronald W.
Walker and David J. Whittaker; University of Illinois Press, 2000). Allen was the
lead investigator for this important work. It lists, and provides an index to, all the
significant books, articles, doctoral dissertations and master's theses on Mormon
history produced between 1830 and 1997. It has been widely hailed as one of the
most important aids to finding LDS history ever published. In 2001 the Mormon
History Association awarded the authors a special citation for the publication of
this book. After that, working with J. Michael Hunter, Allen continued to update
the bibliography database. Hunter has now taken over the updating, and the
database is online at mormonhistory.byu.edu.
Mormon History (with Ronald W. Walker and David J. Whittaker, University of Illinois
Press, 2001). This book is a history of the writing of Mormon history, from the
days of Joseph Smith until the present time.
Over the years he has received various awards, honors, and recognitions, besides those indicated
above. Among them were several "best article" awards; the Karl G. Maeser Research and
Creative Arts Award, Brigham Young University, 1980; named Distinguished Faculty Lecturer,
Brigham Young University, 1984; named a Fellow of the Utah State Historical Society, July 15,
1988; the Leonard J. Arrington Award for a Distinctive Contribution to the cause of Mormon
History, awarded by the Mormon History Asociation, 2008.
James and Renée have enjoyed living in Orem, Utah since 1963.
He currently serves as Sunday School President in his ward, and he and Renée have been officiators
in the Mt. Timpanogos Temple since 2004.
