Heart

Love is the only force that can compose the differences between people that can bridge the chasms of bitterness and animosity that so frequently and violently separate us. I call to mind these telling lines of Edwin Markham:

He drew a circle that shuts me out

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. 

But love and I had the wit to win: 

We drew a circle that took him in. 

In St. Martin's Place in the city of London, across from the National Gallery, is a beautiful statue of a woman in a nurse's uniform. It is erected to the memory of Edith Cavell, the English nurse who shielded wounded Allied soldiers from the enemy. She was caught and summarily executed. The inscription on her monument reads: "Brussels Dawn, October 12, 1915. Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness toward anyone."

He who most beautifully taught this everlasting truth was the Son of God, the one perfect example and teacher of love. His very coming to earth was an expression of his Father's love. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life".

I listened recently to the masterful address on the Atonement delivered at this pulpit by President Marion G. Romney in which he spoke of the manifestation of love by the Son of God who gave his life that all men might live. The Savior spoke prophetically of his sacrifice and of the love that induced it when he declared: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends".

And so, on this day when we think of love in a secular sense, I wish also to remind you of its greater import in a sacred sense. If the world in which we live is to improve, that process must begin with a change in the hearts of men, with an upward looking beyond self to love for God, given with all of one's heart, 

with all of one's soul, with all of one's mind.

The Lord has declared in modern revelation, "If your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you". As we look with love to him, as we serve with an eye single to his glory, there will go from us the darkness of sin, the darkness of selfishness, the darkness of pride. There will come an increased love for our Eternal Father and for his Beloved Son, our Savior and our Redeemer. There will come a greater sense of service toward our fellowmen—a little less of thinking of our own selfish pursuits, a little more of reaching out to others. And in our own individual lives as we seek for love and marriage, there will be a higher power on whom we can call for help and direction, a stronger resolution to live more worthy of a choice and wonderful companion with whom we may walk the way of immortality and eternal life. For this I humbly pray in behalf of each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Gordon B. Hinckley

14 February 1978