True to the Faith | Gordon B. Hinckley | 2007

Описание: "We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men." Guide your life by these principles—be true to the faith.

This speech was given on September 18, 2007.

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"My dear brothers and sisters, you have done it again. This is the 10th year that you have done so, and I congratulate you most warmly. I speak of the Princeton Review rankings, where you have come in first out of 366 colleges. You are the most “stone-cold sober” student body in America.

How proud you ought to feel about this designation—no smoking, no drinking, no drugs. You are living up to the Honor Code of this institution. You will be blessed for doing so.

Why would anyone on this campus, where education is heavily subsidized by the Church, have any desire to do anything less?

It is a remarkable thing that on any given Sunday this magnificent physical plant becomes a vast Church campus. Thousands of young people, scriptures in hand, are to be seen hurrying to classrooms and lecture halls that become places of religious instruction. I do not know where else in all this world there is a similar thing of such magnitude.

Now, yesterday’s Wall Street Journal published the rankings of university business schools, and BYU came in number one in the regional rankings among all the business schools of America (see “Recruiters’ Top Schools,” Journal Report on Business Schools: The Recruiters’ Picks [special section], Wall Street Journal, 17 September 2007, R5).

What a unique institution this is. Coupled with its associates in Hawaii and Idaho, it is a leader both academically and spiritually. How fortunate you are in the opportunity to attend here. Many others wish to come here but are unable to do so.

The magnificent physical plant, together with a great faculty, makes it an academic jewel. But the end product of all of this, of course, is you—you thousands of aspiring young scholars.

I agree that it is a grinding experience to earn a degree here. But the result is something of which you can be extremely proud.

The by-product of your academic achievement will be a bundle of ethical, moral, and spiritual values. These are summarized in our thirteenth article of faith: “We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men” (Articles of Faith 1:13).

This is a short and simple statement, but its implications are enormous.

We believe in being honest.

We cannot cheat. We cannot do anything of a dishonest nature. We make a pledge with ourselves to be scrupulously honest in all that we do. This is not always easy.

In matters of honesty, there are no shortcuts—no little white lies or big black lies. There is only the simple, honest truth spoken in total candor. And I think there is nothing more honest than good, hard work.

I recently read a book titled No Shortcuts to the Top. It is the story of Ed Viesturs. Ed has climbed Mount Everest six times and has reached the summits of the world’s highest mountains without the use of supplemental oxygen. When asked how he did it, he said, “It is just hard, hard work.” To accomplish his feat, Ed actually had to climb one mountain twice. The first time, he was forced to turn back just a short distance from the top and did not feel that he could honestly claim the summit.

An article in a recent issue of Fortune magazine indicated that we

will achieve greatness only through an enormous amount of hard work over many years. . . . The good news is that [our] lack of a natural gift is irrelevant—talent has little or nothing to do with greatness. . . .

. . . Nobody is great without work. [Geoffrey Colvin, “What It Takes to Be Great,” Fortune 154, no. 9 (30 October 2006): 88]

Years ago there was a merchandising institution that carried as its motto “Honesty is the best policy.” In recent years we have seen a veritable parade of business executives who have broken this trust with their dishonest acts and have been sent to prison..."