Real charity is not something you give away; it is something that you acquire and make a part of yourself. And when the virtue of charity becomes implanted in your heart, you are never the same again. It makes the thought of being a basher [critical or verbally abusive] repulsive.

Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn’t handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another’s weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other.

 

One year later, on April 6, 1893, 40 years after the groundbreaking and laying of the cornerstones, 75,000 Saints (15,000 more than the total population of Salt Lake City at that time) gathered for the dedication ceremonies. President Wilford Woodruff, who as a young apostle had pounded the stake into the ground to mark Brigham Young’s cane print in the dirt, presided at the dedication. He and the First Presidency had earlier counseled that everyone planning to attend should first commit themselves to repent and forgive and reconcile all past sins and faults. Elder Franklin D. Richards commented that “it was of more importance for the people to be accepted than for the temple to be accepted.”¹⁸

 

To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.

Before you speak, listen. Before you write, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you invest, investigate. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try. Before you retire, save. Before you die, give.