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Show 06 uvc SOVewS EDITORIAL PAGE Thanksgiving For What? Wh that the glory of God is Many in the world today are willing to grant Divinity that distinction. As we celebrate Thanksgiving Day, in America where this day is so widely observed we thank Him for all our bounteous blessings. But as we do so, how many of us are beginning to doubt His generosity and His benevolence What do we mean by admitting that God is intelligent? He is the Creator. He decreed that we human beings should live on this earth. AltE WE TO SUPPOSE that He would set up conditions here which would make life impossible as the human population grows? Our religion tells us that as His children life, and we lived with Him in a there prepared for an eternal schooling which would help us to become like Him. pre-mort- al We arc also told by our religion that He created this earth for our home during mortality, and that it was good when He completed His creative work. the world then to Are the philosophers convince us that God did not know what He as doing, and that it really was not good when creation was finished? Whom are we to believe? Our prophets who teach this divine plan ot life, or those who sav mt we evolved from lower forms of life: ihi( now we face extinction because that the eaitb ill soon be we will no bo able to raise enough food and that it may not be long until we all starve to - over-populate- d; death, ot most of us, after the great scramble f o- the last straw of wheat and the final ear of corn? - GOD MADE the earth for us. He placed mankind on it for a divine purpose, one which has been lost sight of by most people. He also commanded mankind to reproduce and replenish the earth. He gave us abundant natmal resources of even- kind. And He has said by revelaAND TO 18 ENOUGH tion: TIP-TISPARE. - Did about? If Ho know He - what He was talking intelligent enough to ci eato the in the skies, if He was universes multiple irxtelligen enough to provide the delicate balance in mature which makes life possible here, if He was intelligent enough to give us life, with lv dies which are miracles in themselves, wa- - fie i.ot intelligent enough to measure- - ;n advance the needs of His spirg whom He planned to send to it this earth? Would He have been so forgetful in His off-sprin- RCH - Is God intelligent or not? RECALL WIIAT Einstein said about ? If mankind would only acknowledge that there really is a God, and that He r ules in the destinv of man, and be willing to admit that the Almighty is truly intelligent, our Thanksgiving Day might be quite different from what it now is. '- creative v ork that He overlooked the need to allow for food production for all of the children He planned to send to this arth ? Was He not intelligent enough to measure the need against the supply? Has He not learned about the law of supply and demand? O him: The harmony of natural law reveals an Intelligence of such superiority that compared with it, all the scientific thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insig- nificant reflection. If Einstein admits that God is that intelligent. should we not have sufficient faith in the Almighty to believe that He knows what He is doing and that when He sends His offspring to the earth, He is wise enough to provide sufficient food for them, if they will help themselves ? And to continue with Einstein I cannot conceive of a great scientist without profound faith. Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." Should we not have enough of this profound faith tc believe that the Almighty will feed us even as the five thousand if necessary even as the Israelites escaping Egypt if need be as long as He finds it wise to send more of His children to this earth? He made the heavens and the universes. Many of tne worlds in space are inhabited. He said so himself. Are they starving because of ovei crowding? Are they resorting to the pill to ward off disaster from over-- population ? DR. ARTHUR II. COMPTON, Nobel prize winner, wrote in the Los Angeles Times: The argument of a God on the basis of design in the universe has never been refuted. Where there is plan, there is intelligence, and the orderly unfolding universe testifies to the truth of the most majestic statement ever uttered In the beginning God. If God is that intelligent, shall we not bethat He has balanced His children against their needs and that He will provide for them, and that on this Thanksgiving Day we may properly thank Him for it all, rather than to doubt Him? lieve The Savior taught : Consider the lilies of the field, how they if God so clothe the grass of the grow field . . shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? There were many hunin His day! gry and ... . under-privilege- d Your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye ve need of all these things. But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, AND ALL THESE THINGS SHALL BE ADDED UNTO YOU. L WEEK ENDING NGVEMbER 29, 1969 Dare we believe Him ME N IN MODERN SCRIPTURE : all we of little-faith- ? Edward Partridge In December, 1830, Sidney Rigdon, accompanied by Edward Partridge, sought out the Prophet Joseph Smith at Fayette, N.Y. Sidney desired to know what the Loir' would have him do. The answer is recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants, Section 35. . . At the same time, Edward Partridge was baptized by the Prophet, and in Section 36, the Lord said: I say unto you, my servant Edward, that you are blessed, and your sins are forgiven you, and you are called to preach my gospel as with the voice of a trump. Less than two months later, the Lord, through the Prophet Joseph, said of Edward Partridge: And again, I have called my servant Edward Partridge; and I give a commandment, that he should be appointed by the voice of the Church, and ordained a bishop unto the Church And this because his heart is pure before me, for he is like unto Nathanael of old, in whom there is no guile. (D & C 41:9, 11.) In his own history, the Prophet wrote of this first bishop of the Church: He was a pattern of piety and one of the Lords great men, known by his steadfastness and patient endurance to the end. (History of the Church, Voi. 1, page 128.) What a saintly person Edward Partridge must have been, a man in whom there is no guile or evil; one of those pure in heart who are promised that they shall see God. (Matt. 5:8.) He was a man so just and honest that he was given responsibility for the properties and finances of the Church to see that they were distributed fairly and equitably. Although he was bishop, he found time to serve a mission in the East. Upon returning to Kirtland, he was counseled by the Lord to tarry for a little season, and attend the school (of the Prophets) and also the solemn assembly . . . This latter was the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. Bishop Partridge was a man of unshakeable faith, who, when surrounded by a mob and ordered to deny tbe Gospel or flee into exile, refused to do either. Edward Partridge was tarred and feathered during the persecution of the members in Missouri. He was forced to flee his home in Jackson County. Eventually he settled at Nauvoo where he died May 27, 1840, at the age of 47. .... |