The Growth of the Church

With the murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, there were many convinced, as evidenced by headlines and stories in newspapers from around the country that the demise of Mormonism was at hand. Yet even amidst persecution and extraordinary challenges, the Church continued to grow and prosper.

Andrew D. White, president of Cornell University and later US ambassador to Germany, recounted a conversation he had with Count Leo Tolstoy, the Great Russian author, statesman, and philosopher, while serving as US foreign minister to Russia in 1892. Dr. White visited often with Count Tolstoy, and upon one occasion they discussed religion:

“Dr. White,” said Count Tolstoy, “I wish you would tell me about your American religion.”

 

“We have no state church in America,” replied Dr. White.

 

“I know that, but what about your American religion?”

 

Patiently then Dr. White explained to the Count that in America there are many religions, and that each person is free to belong to the particular church in which he is interested.

 

To this Tolstoy impatiently replied: “I know all of this, but I want to know about the American religion. Catholicism originated in Rome; the Episcopal Church originated in England; the Lutheran Church in Germany, but the Church to which I refer originated in America, and is commonly known as the Mormon Church. What can you tell me of the teachings of the Mormons?”

 

“Well,” said Dr. White, “I know very little concerning them. They have an unsavory reputation; they practice polygamy, and are very superstitious.”

 

Then Count Leo Tolstoy, in his honest and stern, but lovable, manner, rebuked the ambassador. “Dr. White, I am greatly surprised and disappointed that a man of your great learning and position should be so ignorant on this important subject.

The Mormon people teach the American religion; their principles teach the people not only of Heaven and its attendant glories, but how to live so that their social and economic relations with each other are placed on a sound basis. If the people follow the teachings of this Church, nothing can stop their progress—it will be limitless.

There have been great movements started in the past but they have died or been modified before they reached maturity. If Mormonism is able to endure, unmodified, until it reaches the third and fourth generation, it is destined to become the greatest power the world has ever known.”( Thomas J. Yates, “Count Tolstoy and the ‘American Religion,’” Improvement Era, February 1939, 94).

Writing in Review of Religious Research in 1984, Dr. Rodney Stark, an eminent sociologist (who is not a Latter-day Saint), projected that Mormonism, “if growth during the next century is like that of the past,” would “become a major world faith.”

Assuming a 30 percent membership growth per decade (which is considerably lower than the Church’s actual growth rate since World War II), Stark predicted that by 2080 there would be more than sixty million Mormons worldwide.

He went so far as to project that, with a 50 percent growth rate per decade, there would be over 250 million members by the end of the twenty-first century. Stark stated:

Admittedly, straight-line projections are risky; they assume the future will be like the past. There is no way to be sure that Mormon growth won’t suddenly begin to decline. But it would be wise to keep in mind that back in 1880 scholars would have ridiculed anyone who used a straight line projection to predict that the 160,000 Mormons of that year would number more than five million a century hence. But that is now history.

Rodney Stark, “The Rise of a New World Faith,” Review of Religious Research 26 (1984): 18–27; reprinted in Latter-day Saint Social Life, 9–27

My Husband The Bishop

You may remember this talk given in the Oct 2002 Gen. Conf. by Elder Holland, entitled, Called to Serve.  Here is part of it: (emphasis added)

“May I share just one contemporary example of both the challenge and blessings that our “calls to serve” can bring. A wonderful sister recently said to a dear friend: “I want to tell you about the moment I ceased resenting my husband’s time and sacrifice as a bishop. It had seemed uncanny how an ‘emergency’ would arise with a ward member just when he and I were about to go out to do something special together.

“One day I poured out my frustration, and my husband agreed we should guarantee, in addition to Monday nights, one additional night a week just for us. Well, the first ‘date night’ came, and we were about to get into the car for an evening together when the telephone rang.

“‘This is a test,’ I smiled at him. The telephone kept ringing. ‘Remember our agreement. Remember our date. Remember me. Let the phone ring.’ In the end I wasn’t smiling.

“My poor husband looked trapped between me and a ringing telephone. I really did know that his highest loyalty was to me, and I knew he wanted that evening as much as I did. But he seemed paralyzed by the sound of that telephone.

“‘I’d better at least check,’ he said with sad eyes. ‘It is probably nothing at all.’

“‘If you do, our date is ruined,’ I cried. ‘I just know it.’

“He squeezed my hand and said, ‘Be right back,’ and he dashed in to pick up the telephone.

“Well, when my husband didn’t return to the car immediately, I knew what was happening. I got out of the car, went into the house, and went to bed. The next morning he spoke a quiet apology, I spoke an even quieter acceptance, and that was the end of it.

“Or so I thought. I found the event still bothering me several weeks later. I wasn’t blaming my husband, but I was disappointed nevertheless. The memory was still fresh when I came upon a woman in the ward I scarcely knew.

Very hesitantly, she asked for the opportunity to talk. She then told of becoming infatuated with another man, who seemed to bring excitement into her life of drudgery, she with a husband who worked full-time and carried a full load of classes at the university. Their apartment was confining. She had small children who were often demanding, noisy, and exhausting.

She said: ‘I was sorely tempted to leave what I saw as my wretched state and just go with this man. My situation was such that I felt I deserved better than what I had. My rationalization persuaded me to think I could walk away from my husband, my children, my temple covenants, and my Church and find happiness with a stranger.’

“She mentioned: ‘The plan was set; the time for my escape was agreed upon. Yet, as if in a last gasp of sanity, my conscience told me to call your husband, my bishop. I say “conscience,” but I know that was a spiritual prompting directly from heaven. Almost against my will, I called. The telephone rang and rang and rang. Such was the state of my mind that I actually thought, “If the bishop doesn’t answer, that will be a sign I should go through with my plan.”

The phone kept ringing, and I was about to hang up and walk straight into destruction when suddenly I heard your husband’s voice. It penetrated my soul like lightning. Suddenly I heard myself sobbing, saying, “Bishop, is that you? I am in trouble. I need help.” Your husband came with help, and I am safe today because he answered that telephone.

“‘I look back and realize I was tired and foolish and vulnerable. I love my husband and my children with all my heart. I can’t imagine the tragedy my life would be without them. These are still demanding times for our family. I know everyone has them. But we have addressed some of these issues, and things are looking brighter. They always do eventually.’ Then she said: ‘I don’t know you well, but I wish to thank you for supporting your husband in his calling. I don’t know what the cost for such service has been to you or to your children, but if on a difficult day there is a particularly personal cost, please know how eternally grateful I will be for the sacrifice people like you make to help rescue people like me.’”

Sacrifice

The Inexperienced Young Teacher

Some years ago, President James E. Faust of the First Presidency quoted President Gordon B. Hinckley who told “something of a parable” about a one room school house in the mountains of Virginia where the boys were so rough no teacher had been able to handle them.

“Then one day an inexperienced young teacher applied. He was told that every teacher had received an awful beating, but the teacher accepted the risk. The first day of school the teacher asked the boys to establish their own rules and the penalty for breaking the rules. The class came up with 10 rules, which were written on the blackboard. Then the teacher asked, ‘What shall we do with one who breaks the rules?’

'Beat him across the back ten times without his coat on,’ came the response.

A day or so later, … the lunch of a big student, named Tom, was stolen. The thief was located—a little hungry fellow, about ten years old.

As Little Jim came up to take his licking, he pleaded to keep his coat on. ‘Take your coat off,’ the teacher said. ‘You helped make the rules!’

The boy took off the coat. He had no shirt and revealed a bony little crippled body. As the teacher hesitated with the rod, Big Tom jumped to his feet and volunteered to take the boy’s licking.

‘Very well, there is a certain law that one can become a substitute for another. Are you all agreed?’ the teacher asked.

After five strokes across Tom’s back, the rod broke. The class was sobbing. Little Jim had reached up and caught Tom with both arms around his neck. “Tom, I’m sorry that I stole your lunch, but I was awful hungry. Tom, I will love you till I die for taking my licking for me! Yes, I will love you forever!”

President Hinckley then quoted Isaiah:

'Surely [Christ] hath borne our grief's, and carried our sorrows. …'" (Isaiah 53:4 & Mosiah 14:4)