Stick to Your Task

Stick to your task till it sticks to you.

Beginners are many, but enders are few.

Honor, power, place and praise

Will always come to the one who stays.

Stick to your task till it sticks to you;

Bend at it, sweat at it, smile at it, too—

For out of the bend and the sweat and the smile

Will come life’s victories after awhile.

- Anonymous

Nazareth Was a Little Place

Meade MacGuire

“Father, where shall I work today?”
And my love flowed warm and free.
Then he pointed out a tiny spot
And said, “Tend that for me.”
I answered quickly, “Oh no, not that!
Why, no one would ever see,
No matter how well my work was done.
Not that little place for me.”
And the word he spoke, it was not stern; …
“Art thou working for them or for me?
Nazareth was a little place,
And so was Galilee.”

- Meade MacGuire, “Father, Where Shall I Work Today?” 

True Education

David O. McKay

“The Church stands for education. The very purpose of its organization is to promulgate truth among men. Members of the Church are admonished to acquire learning by study, and also by faith and prayer, and to seek after everything that is virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy. …

“Indeed, one of the fundamental teachings of the Church is that salvation itself depends upon knowledge; for, says the revelation, ‘It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance,’ (D&C 131:6)” (Gospel Ideals, 440).

“Gaining knowledge is one thing and applying it, quite another. Wisdom is the right application of knowledge; and true education—the education for which the Church stands—is the application of knowledge to the development of a noble and Godlike character.

“A man may possess a profound knowledge of history and of mathematics; he may be authority in psychology, biology, or astronomy; he may know all the discovered truths pertaining to geology and natural science; but if he has not with this knowledge that nobility of soul which prompts him to deal justly with his fellow men, to practise virtue and holiness in personal life, he is not a truly educated man.

“Character is the aim of true education; and science, history, and literature are but means used to accomplish the desired end. Character is not the result of chance work but of continuous right thinking and right acting.

“True education seeks, then, to make men and women not only good mathematicians, proficient linguists, profound scientists, or brilliant literary lights, but also honest men, combined with virtue, temperance, and brotherly love—men and women who prize truth, justice, wisdom, benevolence, and self-control as the choicest acquisitions of a successful life” 

- David O. McKay (Gospel Ideals, 440)

A Single Figure Rises from the Flood

Arnold Toynbee

"This is the final result of our survey of saviours. When we first set out on our quest we found ourselves in the midst of a mighty marching host; but as we have pressed forward on our way, the marchers company by company have been falling out of the race. The first to fall were the swordsmen, the next the archaists, the next the futurists, the next the philosophers, until at length there were no more human competitors left in the running. In the last stage of all our motley host of would-be saviours, human and divine, has dwindled to a single company of none but gods; and now the strain has been testing the staying power of these last remaining runners, notwithstanding their superhuman strength. At the final ordeal of death few even of these would-be saviour-gods have dared to put their title to the test by plunging into the icy river. And now, as we stand and gaze with our eyes fixed upon the farther shore, a single figure rises from the flood and straightway fills the whole horizon. There is the Saviour; "and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand: he shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied." 

- Arnold Toynbee [quoted in F. W. Dillistone - "The Christian Understanding of Atonement".]