It was all part of God’s plan—the coming of Columbus, the colonization, wise men raised up to frame the Constitution, Joseph Smith prepared for his part in the restoration of the gospel, even the persecution which drove the Saints to the Rocky Mountains where the Church could continue to grow.

What does all this mean to you and me as individuals? It means that God, as our Father, made all these arrangements for you and me. We were part of his eternal scheme. And so it is not enough merely to observe these various anniversaries, but we must recommit and rededicate ourselves to uphold the convictions and the principles upon which the blessings we enjoy are predicated. We too must be prepared to sacrifice, where necessary, to keep our freedoms inviolate. My father used to say: “The true way to honor the past is to improve upon it.”

Therefore, we should love God more. We should serve our fellowmen better. We should keep all the commandments. We should be better prepared as parents to teach our children to pray and to walk uprightly before the Lord, and to assume their responsibilities. It would be tragic if for fear of the challenge involved the descendants of those who gave so liberally and sacrificed so much shrank from the duties of their day and time.

Let me say something of the marvelous members of the Church themselves. In the reorganization of a rather far-flung stake recently, I felt the Lord’s prompting to call a man to the stake presidency who, I had been told, owned a bicycle but no automobile. Many leaders across the Church don’t have cars, but I was nevertheless worried about what that might mean for this man in this particular stake. In my terminally-ill Spanish I pursued the interview, then said, “Hermano, ¿no tiene un auto?” With a smile and not a second’s hesitation he replied, “No tengo un auto; pero yo tengo pies, yo tengo fe.” (“I do not have a car, but I do have feet and I do have faith.”) He then said he could ride the bus, ride his bicycle, or walk, “como los misioneros,” he smiled—“like the missionaries.” And so he does.

If someone were to ask you who we are as a people, what would you say? Who are we as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

The answer, I believe, is a simple one given to us by the Savior Himself. We are a people who love the Lord with all our hearts, souls, and minds. And we are a people who love our neighbor as ourselves. (See Matthew 22:37–39.)

This answer satisfies many of the questions asked about why we do what we do. Why does the Church ask so much of its members? Because we love the Lord, and we love our neighbor. Why do we do temple work? Missionary work? Welfare work? Because we love the Lord, and we love our neighbor.

These are the roots of all that we do. We do not send our missionaries out into the world to collect statistics. We send them into the world because we love our Heavenly Father, and we love our fellowmen.

That is who we are as a people. That is why we do what we do.

I have become convinced the LDS people will have to come back to the fundamental principles of constitutional government voluntarily or the Lord will punish us so harshly that we will be led back to them to escape our sufferings.

By "drawing the line" I do not mean to exclude ourselves from that society. I do suggest that we must confirm and coalesce our opposition to the surge of degeneracy that now permeates our entertainments, our literature, and our so-called arts. We can no longer casually endure (if not ultimately embrace) the continued downward spiral of our culture's art, literature, and entertainment into the abyss of vile perversion. As Joshua challenged Israel, so we must accept the challenge to "choose you this day whom ye will serve." As Christ taught so directly, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Latter-day Saints can no longer accept the false notion that it is possible to honor the covenants we have made, to be loyal to the Godhead who have revealed themselves to us, and at the same time participate, even in the role of a passive observer, in the practices all about us that are leading to greater and greater degeneracy.

For the Latter-day Saint, the survival of the American Republic is an essential part of his religious responsibility. The Constitution of the United States is a divinely revealed document intended by the Lord to be a vital factor in preparing the earth for the Savior's return. One cannot in ignorance or apathy fulfill that mandate to preserve the Constitution and the institutions of our liberty.