Finding Weakness in Leaders

Brigham Young said of Joseph Smith, "Though I admitted in my feelings and knew all the time that Joseph was a human being and still subject to err, still it was none of my business to look after his faults....He was called of God; God dictated him, and if He had a mind to leave him to himself and let him commit an error, that was no business of mine....He was God's servant, and not mine."

Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses,4:297 quoted in Oaks, "Criticism," 72.

Stephen L. Richards on Humanizing Heros

"If a man of history has secured over the years a high place in the esteem of his countrymen and fellow men and has become imbedded in their affections, it has seemingly become a pleasing pastime for researchers and scholars to delve into the past of such a man, discover, if may be, some of his weaknesses and then write a book exposing hitherto unpublished alleged factual findings, all of which tends to rob the historic character of the idealistic esteem and veneration in which he may have been held through the years."

Russel M. Nelson, "Truth-and More" Ensign,Jan. 1986

Elder Neal A. Maxwell on Idolizing

"We must be careful...not to canonize [our role] models as we have some pioneers and past Church leaders-not to dry all the human sweat off them, not to put ceaseless smiles on their faces, when they really struggled and experienced agony. Real people who believe and prevail are ultimately more faith-promoting and impressive than saccharine saints with tinsel traits."

Bruce C. Hafen, A Diciples Life: The Biography of Neal A. Maxwell(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2000)

Elder Cook on Heroic Gestures

In a lecture at Brigham Young University, James S. Jardine, former chairman of the board of trustees of the University of Utah, indicated that when he was a student, he thought “of consecrating [his] life in one grand, heroic gesture” but came to realize that “consecration is not a once in a lifetime event; it is a daily devotion.” 4

When I was young, I too wanted to prove myself through some heroic gesture. My great-grandfather David Patten Kimball was one of the young men who helped carry the members of the Martin handcart company across the Sweetwater River. That sounded like the kind of consecration for which I was looking. Later, as I visited with my grandfather Crozier Kimball, he explained that when President Brigham Young sent the men on their rescue mission, he instructed them to do everything they possibly could to save the handcart company. Their consecration was specifically to “follow the prophet.” My grandfather told me that consistent, faithful dedication to one’s duty or to a principle is to be much admired. As heroic as it was for David Patten Kimball to help rescue the pioneers, it might be equally heroic today to follow the prophet by not watching immoral movies or by refraining from using vulgar language.

My mission president put all this into perspective for me and taught that, in some cases, seeking to perform a heroic effort can be a form of looking beyond the mark. He shared a wonderful poem that reads, in part:

O, one might reach heroic heights
By one strong burst of power.
He might endure the whitest lights
Of heaven for an hour;—.
But harder is the daily drag,
To smile at trials which fret and fag,
And not to murmur—nor to lag.
The test of greatness is the way
One meets the eternal Everyday. 5

Quentin L. Cook, “Looking beyond the Mark,” Liahona, Mar 2003, 21