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This is the last General Conference address delivered by President Cannon prior to his death a year later
I would not like to let this subject of the leaflets pass without making some remarks upon them. I consider the leaflets the finest kind of literature for our children. The only objection--if it can be called an objection--that I have heard mentioned in connection with connection with them, is that they are not graded, and that they are too long for one Sunday's exercises. But I have been greatly impressed with their value. They contain an amount of information in a condensed space that must be of exceeding value to everyone who is a student.
When speaking of students, I may include all who are pupils in our Sunday schools up to the mature man. I consider them excellent, and they should be read, and they should be taught to our children. We have concluded to suspend the further publication of them for the time being in order that the schools may catch up, that we may not have a mass of literature on our hands that is not used and waste our means in that way. I think this is a subject that ought to receive the attention of all the superintendents; and if there are leaflets on hand in any Sunday school they should be used, and the classes given the instructions that are contained in the leaflets. There is a great deal of information to be gained from them, and I am sure they will be valuable not only to the children of the Sunday school but to all who will devote time to their perusal.
Now in regard to the "Nickel" fund I may say that I have been, from the very beginning, opposed to levying any serious burden on Sunday schools, and it was a long time before my consent could be obtained to even making a nickel donation, for I hoped that we would be able to sustain our Sunday schools without anything of that kind. But the necessity for some funds to do work that we thought necessary for the schools and for their advancement compelled us to take into consideration the idea of making a small collection such as a nickel once a year, and I do hope that all the superintendents will appreciate the spirit of the Sunday School Union board in this respect, and will at least do their part in bringing about and in collecting this small amount at the time that is appointed. You may depend upon it that every cent is used in the most economical and careful manner.
A question has been presented to us, sent up to the stand, of this character: "There are children who attend our Sunday schools whose parents are opposed to the children being baptized although the children desire to be baptized. They have refused their consent to the present time, and the question is asked, What shall be done with those children in administering the Sacrament? Shall they be deprived of the Sacrament because of their non-baptism. We have considered this question, and President Smith and Brother Lyman and myself being now on the stand here, have decided that children who are desirous to be baptized and who are prevented by those who have them in charge, their parents or guardians, from complying with this ordinance, that they should have the sacrament administered to them; and this will apply to all cases of this kind in our Sunday schools. Where the children--mark you, I want you to mark this--where the children are desirous desirous to obey this law and are prevented from doing so, that they shall receive the Sacrament or have it administered to them.
Now I would like to make a few remarks upon another subject that has been mentioned here, the "Juvenile Instructor." You have heard from Brother Summerhays concerning it. When I was spoken to the other evening in relation to this, I expressed myself, after I had heard a good many remarks, as favorable to the sale to the Sunday School Union. I have felt for some time that this would probably be a better arrangement. I have, I may say, looked upon the Juvenile Instructor as a pet. It is the only publication that has existed for the long time in the Church that it has, that has not received support outside of its subscription.
The means it has required to sustain it have come out of my private funds. I have published it now for thirty-five years. It is the oldest publication now existing in the Church excepting the Millennial Star and the Deseret News. It has been a labor of love with me, because I have felt that it was identified with the Sunday school cause; and at the commencement of its publication I felt (I had just returned from long missions I had filled) that there was a great field in our State for the improvement of our little children in the organization of Sunday schools among them, and the Juvenile Instructor has done its part, no doubt, in maintaining this idea and contributing to the success of the Sunday schools, and I feel that there is a great mission yet for it to perform.
I am willing, under the circumstances, that it should go as the brethren desire. It has been remarked, so I have been told, that it is a private institution. Well, it has been. Fortunately it has been so. It could not have lived if it had not been sustained by private funds. There have been many times during the thirty-five years that have passed that its publication could not have continued without such aid. Other magazines have tried and have failed because of causes which, if they had operated upon it, would have caused it to be suspended. I was very glad, indeed, to feel the spirit that was manifested the other evening in relation to this before I expressed myself in that meeting -- expressed my willingness to have the publication transferred. I thought these few words from me were due this assembly this evening.
Before sitting down, there is another subject that I think has been touched upon by Brother Lyman and others in relation to the Sabbath day, that I wish to say a word upon. Brethren and sisters, we ought, with all our energies, with all the powers we have, to endeavor to have our children, and the rising generation among us, respect the Sabbath day. I was greatly pleased in Canada to find how strict they were in enforcing the law against violators of the Sabbath.
I feel that there ought to be some ordinance, or some rule or law put in force that will stop these public and private violations of the Sabbath day. Its desecration is shocking to the sense of those who believe in the sacredness of that day, and who believe that God has actually commanded us to meet together and make our offerings on that day, to keep it holy and to avoid, as much as possible, all kinds of work on that holy day. Even cooking and household work, all such labor, ought to be as much as possible lessened. For many years in my own family, it was agreed that we would do nothing on the Sabbath day that could be avoided, and we provided beforehand our food, so that we would not be under the necessity of breaking the Sabbath in cooking it. I believe that is a good rule.
And we should not allow, if we can prevent it, the gangs of young men and boys that we see around the street corners on the Sabbath evenings. Let us, as a united people, as united Sunday school workers, use our personal influence to check this tendency that is so painfully apparent among us. We are a religious people, and when we contrast Salt Lake City in these respects with the manner in which the Sabbath is observed in communities that do not make the professions that we do, it brings the blush of shame to us to see how much behind we are in this respect; and I hope that our united influence will be used in the right direction, to check these violations of the holy day that God has set apart for worship and for the rest of His people.
There has not been so much traveling backward and forward in the galleries this evening as I have sometimes witnessed, but I think there has been entirely too much, and it is a very great breach of good manners for people to come to meetings of this kind and be traveling backward and forward and be disturbing those who have come to hear and enjoy; and I hope that in our future meetings our ushers will take the necessary steps to prevent this conduct.
And here ends the record without so much as an "Amen."
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