I was out tracting in that city one day and I had been to a particular house several times when the lady of the house said, “Mr. Richards, what are you trying to do, anyway, are you trying to make Mormons out of all of us?”
“Well,” I said, “I will tell you one thing, I will never ask you to join the Mormon Church,” and that seemed to put her mind at ease. Then I said, “If I could show you where you could trade a dollar for five dollars, I would not have to ask you to do it, would I?”
After I had been home a few months I received a letter from her calling me “Brother Richards.” She said, “I decided to trade the dollar for five dollars. I was baptized a member of the Church last Friday night.“
I think that any elder in Israel who cannot make Mormonism look better than five to one had better get hold of the scriptures and go to work and study the gospel. . . .
I spent an hour and a half in the study of one of the most prominent ministers in the United States. He died a few weeks ago, and at the time of his death he was chaplain of the United States Senate. While I was in his study we discussed this subject. He said, “Mr. Richards, our church does not give us any hope that there will be a continuation of the marriage tie or the family unit beyond this life, but in my heart I find stubborn objections.” Then he used this illustration, and it was better than I could have given him. I have used it since, myself. He said:
“When you take the kitten away from the cat, in a few days the cat has forgotten all about the kitten, and when you take the calf away from the cow, in a few days the cow has forgotten about its calf; but when you take the child away from its mother’s bosom, though she lives to be a hundred years old, she never forgets the child of her bosom. I find it difficult to believe that God created love like that to perish in the grave.” But he could not tell his people that from the pulpit because he could not hold his job and teach them Mormonism.
I want to tell you that we have so much more than any other church that five to one does not begin to show it. Why do we not get into the hearts of our boys and girls and our men and women so that no power under heaven will have the power to take them away from this church?
Notes
Elder LeGrand Richards, Conference Report, October 1949, pp. 177-79.
See also: The parable of two lamps