President Stephen L. Richards

First Counselor in the First Presidency

I call upon the Lord to come to my rescue in this, the most trying hour of my life. It reaches beyond my understanding to know why I have been privileged in the providence of God to stand before you, my brethren and sisters of the Church, in the capacity in which I have this day been presented to you.

Friendship of Great Man

For more than forty-five years I have had a great man as a friend. I don't know how I have deserved his friendship as he has given it to me. His friendship has been one of the main factors of encouragement in my life. My association with him has brought more richness into my life and my experience than any other association outside that of my own flesh and blood.

This great man has stimulated me in times of discouragement to go forward and give the best I could to this work. I shall never live long enough to pay the debt of gratitude I owe my friend. I respond to his call with the deepest humility, with a great sense of inadequacy, but with an obligation to give to him my best.

Devotion of Willard Richards

One of the few ways in which I can account for this which has transpired lies in another friendship. My grandfather, Willard Richards, was an intimate and close friend of the Prophet Joseph Smith. I am honored to learn and to know that the Prophet prized his friendship, and is said to have remarked on one occasion that no one could ever have a finer friend than was Willard Richards.

You recall that at one time he was discouraged by his superiors to follow the Prophet to Carthage Jail. He replied by an offer of his life for the Prophet, if he would accept it, and he went with the Prophet and his brother, witnessed their assassination, and then with his great love and heavy heart took their bodies back to the people of Nauvoo, assuaged their excitement, and gave them counsel to be calm.

I have often felt that the only reason for my being in the presiding councils of the Church is in the devotion of Willard Richards to the Prophet Joseph Smith. I believe there are councils on the other side. We have had testimonies of them, and while I cannot understand I can believe that the Prophet, out of consideration for his friend, has had a voice in bringing me into the Council of the Twelve through President Joseph F. Smith, and also in that which has brought me to this position. I would like to be as true a friend to President David O. McKay as my grandfather was to the Prophet, and in some measure show to him my appreciation of his marvelous kindness to me.

President J. Reuben Clark

I have had the pleasure of long acquaintance with President J. Reuben Clark, and I have loved him and still love him as an exemplar, as one of the most true and solicitous friends that a man can have, and as a man of such high ability and outstanding achievement as to command the respect of all, not only within the confines of our Church but also in the nation and the world.

I have gloried in his achievements. I have felt that the credit he has reflected upon the Church has been of immeasurable value in setting this work forward. It will be a great pleasure to have even closer associations with him, and as I pledge my love and support to the President, I pledge it to him also.

Confidence in Lord's Promises

I cannot go forward in this work, my brethren and my sisters, without the aid of the Holy Spirit. I must have confidence, however, in the promises of the Lord that if we will faithfully serve him he will sustain us. We must have the faith of Nephi of old. If it is of any qualification for the work, I declare my love for it. I love the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I accept all of its principles. I accept its authority. I accept the great and marvelous organization of the Church as being calculated to raise humanity to the highest destiny men and women may reach.

Testimony of Divine Origin

I know that it is of divine origin. I am realistic enough to believe every word that the Prophet Joseph Smith gave to us regarding his early experiences in the restoration of this work. There is nothing about his story that is not literal to me. I know it is the truth, and I know that he lives, as we sang today, in the heavens above, and has gone to a reward, the like of which few, if any, men shall ever be permitted to attain.

I know that Jesus Christ is our Elder Brother and our Lord and our Savior and the God of this Earth, and that testimony permeates every fibre of my being.

I saw one of my brethren down here in the audience today-President Piranian. He will remember when he guided us into the land of Jerusalem, concerning which we spoke a little yesterday. As I went to the places made memorable and now preserved as shrines by the works and ministry of the Savior, my heart was full of meditation.

I never saw a thing in the actions of men, I never saw a thing in the paganistic buildings that have been constructed to remind me of the Savior, but I remember that it was here that he labored and I said to myself with the deepest humility, "Brother Piranian and I are the only men in all of this so-called Holy Land who really represent the Christ about whose shrines those ignorant, deluded people were quarreling and fighting-the only men having the priesthood of Almighty God given from an angel of the Lord," and I was subdued as this overpowering thought came to me.

I know that this priesthood is divine. I know that it is more than a mere name. I know that there is virtue and essence in it, if I can discern anything by the interpretative senses God has given me. I have felt the essence and virtue of this Holy Priesthood go out as I have administered the ordinances of the gospel.

Appeal for Blessings

I thank the Lord from the bottom of my heart for this great power that has come to men and been so generously and widely bestowed among them, and I pray to him that I may be worthy of the investiture of that power and use it for the building up of his kingdom and the blessing of his children.

I humbly pray that the administration which has come into being this day by your concerted action may prove to be a boon to this work that shall go beyond anything which we now may contemplate, and I humbly invoke the blessings of God upon our beloved leader, that vision may be given him to see the way in which we shall go. I ask God to bless us all that we may follow him and support him to accomplish the mighty works that God has in store for his people. I do so humbly in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen