oh say what is truth?

Doug's Sunday morning talk:

Prior to Sister Ingalls address we sang a song we do not sing much anymore. I don’t know why. In fact over the past couple of weeks I have determined and noted that anyone under about the age of 40 is rarely familiar with the song “Oh Say, What is Truth?”. The song was written by John Jaques, an English convert to the Church in 1845, who soon as his baptism served a mission in England in the area around Stratford-on-Avon…in 1856 with his wife and family he crossed the Atlantic and soon after arrival joined the Martin Handcart Company to cross the plains to SLC. His oldest daughter was among those who died in Wyoming when the both the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies were caught in snowstorms.

While on his second mission to Great Britain from 1869 to 1871 he contemplated Pilate’s question to Jesus Christ “What is truth?” and from that personal study wrote a poem entitled “Oh Say, What is Truth?”. During that mission he served in Scotland for a time and while there taught and baptized a woman by the name of Ellen Knowles Melling. Sister Melling later set Brother Jaques poem to the music we sang today. Later in life Brother Jaques served as the Assistant Church Historian and the first librarian of the Genealogical Society of Utah.

While this story is interesting it is not why I chose to sing the song today. I now want to tell you the rest of the story…approximately 25 years after Brother Jaques and Sister Melling turned the poem into a Mormon hymn, there lived in the city of Doncaster, in the District of Yorkshire in Northern England a man named John Stoker who owned a hat shop. Missionaries of the Church often frequented the store to purchase their hats. During one of these visits the missionaries invited Mr. Stoker to church and he agreed. In fact he came consistently to church each week and was soon baptized. His wife Clara refused to participate with her husband in his new found religion…but noted to a friend one day after much time had passed, that her husband was changing and was becoming a better person and she was interested in knowing what they were telling him at that church he attended each week. Clara and her friend decided to follow John to church the following week without him knowing about it. They did not enter the building where the meeting was being held but instead, chose to listen from outside through an open window. Following the preaching that day, those gathered sang a song entitled “Oh Say, What is Truth?”. It was during the singing of this hymn that the Spirit bore witness to Sister Stoker that what she had heard through the open window that day was the truth. She hurried home and greeted her husband with her story and told him that very day of her desire to be baptized.

The Stokers immigrated to the U.S. with the help of the missionaries who had taught them. They settled in the town of Lehi in Utah county and there raised a large family that included a daughter named after her mother Clara. Brother Stoker served many years as the bishop of the Lehi Ward. Daughter Clara married a man named John Neal who together had one son and a daughter named Barbara. Barbara is my wife’s mother, a valiant member of the church her whole life, who also served a mission as a young Sister missionary in 1950 and then raised six children in the gospel and currently has 24 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren.

Who should I be grateful to the most for helping me find a valiant wife who has in turn influenced for good the lives of my children and grandchildren? John Jaques for joining the church, walking across the plains and writing a poem or to Ellen Melling for turning it into a hymn that provided the setting for the Spirit to witness the truth to a woman named Clara who refused to attend church with her husband but, in the end, listened with her heart to the witness of the truth? Maybe… I should be grateful to John Stoker for selling hats to missionaries and agreeing to attend church…or maybe I should be grateful to the missionaries who taught John Jaques or to the missionaries who taught John Stoker??? Or maybe I should be grateful to Clara Stoker Neal who raised her son John and daughter Barbara to love the Lord and be good members of His church in Lehi, Utah. And let’s not forget the brave men who left the October General conference in 1856 at the request of Brigham Young and went and rescued Brother Jaques and his family while members of the Martin Handcart company…He never would have baptized Sister Melling if he had perished. So many contributed to the fact that my wife safely entered this life assured of an association with the truth. I guess I will have to be grateful to all of them equally. Each one for continuing a legacy of obedience and faithfulness that has touched many lives and many more to come.

Like all the individuals in this wonderful chain of unbroken faithfulness, each played a part in influencing the lives of others who in-turn influenced others for good. Each of us has that same opportunity here in the Leesburg Florida Stake of Zion. Our task is no different than theirs…oh we don’t have to walk across the plains and brave the snows of Wyoming...but we do have to match what each individual in the story had in common. They all lived obedient lives, raised valiant families, did what their leaders asked of them and were sensitive to the Spirit of direction in their lives. If we will only do those things we will be missionaries worthy of influencing the lives of those without the gospel. We can all qualify as instruments in the hands of the Lord to bring the truth to others.

Yes, say, what is truth? “Tis the brightest prize

To which mortals or Gods can aspire. Go search in the depths where it glittering lies, Or ascend in pursuit to the loftiest skies:

‘Tis an aim for the noblest desire.

How blessed we are to have the fullness of truth as found in the scriptures and in revealed revelation through the Lord’s anointed servants…even Prophets Apostles Seers and Revelators. How blessed we are to have the Priesthood of God and the ordinances and covenants that bind us together forever.