It is a privilege to celebrate this important day with you. I add my congratulations for your achievements, and for all the hard work, efforts, and miracles that have made this day possible for you. I acknowledge times of discouragement or even feelings of dread when facing a particularly challenging test or assignment, but you have made it. I express my gratitude for your family members and others who have been a support during your time here and add my gratitude for the faithful members of the Church all over the world whose tithing donations have also made your education possible.
Last week one of our daughters announced that she would be having another baby next June. We are excited for another grandchild. I was thinking about what she or he will encounter coming into the world at this particular time. It brings to my mind a quote that I heard soon after Jill and I were married and were welcoming babies into our home.
The author was F. W. Boreham, an English minister. He was writing of the events during the Napoleonic Wars in the early part of the 19th century. He wrote,
Men were following, with bated breath, the march of Napoleon, and waiting with feverish impatience for the latest news of the wars. And all the while, in their own homes, babies were being born. But who could think about babies? Everybody was thinking about battles . . . . In one year . . . between Trafalgar and Waterloo, there stole into the world a host of heroes! . . . In 1809 . . . Gladstone was born at Liverpool; Alfred Tennyson was born at the Somersby rectory . . . Oliver Wendell Holmes made his first appearance at Massachusetts . . . and Abraham Lincoln drew his first breath at Old Kentucky. Music was enriched by the advent of Frederic Chopin at Warsaw, and of Felix Mendelssohn at Hamburg . . . . Elizabeth Barrett Browning [was born] at Durham. . . . But nobody thought of babies. Everybody was thinking of battles. Yet . . . which of the battles of 1809 mattered more than the babies of 1809? . . . We fancy that God can only manage His world by big battalions . . . when all the while He is doing it by beautiful babies. . . . When a wrong wants righting, or a work wants doing, or a truth wants preaching, or a continent wants opening, God sends a baby into the world to do it.[1]
When President M. Russell Ballard was born, there wasn’t a lot of worldly attention on his birth. Some of the things happening in that time period were the discovery of penicillin, the signs of the coming Great Depression, and the rise of organized crime and gangster wars across the nation. But the Lord had His eyes on that new baby who would be destined to bless millions of lives and help change the world.
What about you? Most of you graduates were born in the 1990s. You came into the world without much fanfare, either. The world was focused at that time on other things. It was the time of adjustment in world affairs after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. There was a brutal war in the Balkans and a genocide in Rwanda. Amazon.com and Google were created, and Toy Story, the first completely computer-generated movie, debuted. There was more buzz about Woody and Buzz Lightyear in the world than about you.
Today some of the babies of the 1990s are graduating from BYU–Idaho. What wrongs are you here to right? What discoveries will you make? Whose lives will you touch? Some of you will rise to prominence in business, education, science, medicine, the arts, and other fields. Others will not have public prominence, but will impact the world, nonetheless.
I love the account in the Book of Mormon of a time when the Nephite civilization hung in the balance. The society was in a very precarious position with the defending armies struggling to hold off the attacks. Reinforcements and provisions were in very short supply as a result of strife within the nation. The civilization was saved from destruction because of a relatively small number of individuals who were in place at just the right time to change the course of history. Even though the tide of the war was turned because of these people, we don't know the name of even one of them. We just know them as the mothers of the stripling warriors. In each of their homes they had consistently taught their children faith, obedience, and the gospel of Jesus Christ. This had prepared their young sons so they could serve. These Lamanite mothers saved the entire Nephite nation.
These are your days.[2] You are disciples of Jesus Christ and have developed great faith in Him. You have been blessed with a great education, and the Lord is able to use your gifts and talents to further His work on the earth. May you go forward and make a difference in the world by keeping your covenants and blessing others.
I conclude by rereading the last part of the quote, and this time including his final sentence which I left off before:
We fancy that God can only manage His world by big battalions . . . when all the while He is doing it by beautiful babies. . . . When a wrong wants righting, or a work wants doing, or a truth wants preaching, or a continent wants opening, God sends a baby into the world to do it. That is why, long, long ago, a babe was born at Bethlehem.[3]
I pray that as you go forth, you can have the Lord’s power evident in your lives.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
[1] F. W. Boreham, Mountains in the Mist: Some Australian Reveries, 1919, 166-7, 170.
[2] See Helaman 7:9.
[3] F. W. Boreham, Mountains in the Mist: Some Australian Reveries, 1919, 170.