Demand Nothing More

In Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, one of the themes is that of love. He wrote after describing the marriage of Marius and Cosette, “These felicities are the true ones. There is no joy outside of these joys. Love is the only ecstasy. All the rest weeps. To love, or to have loved,—this suffices. Demand nothing more. There is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life. To love is a fulfilment.” Then as Jean Valjean lay dying, he said to these two, “Love each other well and always. There is nothing else but that in the world: love for each other.” These kinds of statements perhaps inspired the musical to use the phrase, “To love another person is to see the face of God” (a statement that is not actually in the book itself). One of the messages of both the book and the musical is that there is great enduring power in love. The love of Jean Valjean was more powerful and lasting than the greed and hate of Thénardier or the justice of Javert. It saved the lives of both Cosette and Marius and its impact would have endured well beyond the death of Valjean. The story reminds us of Mormon’s declaration: “Charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him” (Moroni 7:47). Nearly everything we have will one day disappear or be taken from us. But the pure love of Christ, if we have obtained it through His grace, will endure with us forever. It is the great possession we should seek to have and to hold throughout our whole lives.

            I was touched by an account of President Hinckley in fourth Saints book which showed the great love he had for his wife. It relates, “On January 12, 2008, President Gordon B. Hinckley stood at the grave of his wife, Marjorie, in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. It had been nearly four years since her death. She had taken ill on the flight home from the Accra Ghana Temple dedication and passed away a few months later, on April 6, 2004. Together, President and Sister Hinckley had crisscrossed the globe, ministering to the Saints and enjoying one another’s companionship. He missed her immensely. Only his Church service and family kept him from being overcome with loneliness. President Hinckley tried to visit her grave every week to leave her flowers and meditate on their sixty-six years of marriage. He worried that some people might think he visited the grave too often. But he went anyway. ‘She was my everything, the one whom I held most dear,’ he’d once reflected. ‘The least I can do is to leave an expression of beauty each week.’” Shortly after this he arranged for his own funeral program, and his final wish was to be buried next to her. He concluded, “I thus place myself in the hands of the Lord and join my beloved eternal companion to walk hand in hand on the road of immortality and eternal life.” He passed away shortly thereafter and indeed joined his Marjorie on the other side of the veil. He showed through his example what it means to truly love another. And surely he found as he crossed the bar that despite what he left behind in mortality, he still possessed that great love for his wife.

            In a revelation to Thomas B. Marsh, the Lord gave powerful counsel about how we should seek to love in this life. He said, “I know thy heart, and have heard thy prayers concerning thy brethren. Be not partial towards them in love above many others, but let thy love be for them as for thyself; and let thy love abound unto all men, and unto all who love my name” (Doctrine and Covenants 112:11). We should strive to love not partially but in abundance; our love should not be measured with careful limits but rather abound for all men. Then we will find indeed that there is nothing more to demand out of life than to truly love.