I have thought often about Captain Moroni’s powerful statement
to Zerahemnah as they stood on the field of battle. When Moroni called for a
stop to the fighting, hoping to end the conflict there with a covenant from
their enemies to come against them no more, Moroni said this to the opposing
leader: “And now, Zerahemnah, I command you, in the name of that all-powerful
God, who has strengthened our arms that we have gained power over you, by our
faith, by our religion, and by our rites of worship, and by our church, and by
the sacred support which we owe to our wives and our children, by that liberty
which binds us to our lands and our country; yea, and also by the maintenance
of the sacred word of God, to which we owe all our happiness” (Alma 44:5). Two
phrases in particular have caused me to think deeply about what Moroni said.
First, he spoke of liberty that should bind us to our country, a seemingly
contradictory notion which suggests a firm devotion to freedom that must be
present for that liberty to be sustained. He also declared that they owed
all their happiness to their commitment to the sacred word of God. Moroni
understood the power of the word of God, even more powerful than the sword that
he held, in preserving their happiness. And he also was fiercely loyal to the
principles of freedom upon which their society was based. Surely his is a compelling
example for us today: we must be firmly committed to preserving both freedom
and the sacred word of God in order to maintain our happiness in the future.
I
thought of this verse today as I pondered the meaning of this weekend’s celebrations
for Independence Day in the United States of America. What struck me was that
we owe so much of our happiness and peaceful way of life here to words
that have been maintained. By that I meant the Constitution of the United States,
which is composed of “just and holy principles” inspired by the Lord “for the
rights and protection of all flesh” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:77). I believe
that the words of the Constitution, and the faith trust the people have placed
in them, are a foundational source for all of the blessings we enjoy here in
this country. As President Oaks described,
this document—"the oldest written constitution still in force today”—contains
divinely inspired principles, and these have been the source of the blessings
of freedom we enjoy so abundantly here. These include the fact that “the source
of government power is the people,” that powers should be separated between branches
of government, that certain rights—outlined in the Bill of Rights—are vital and
must be protected, and perhaps most importantly that “we are to be governed
by law and not by individuals.” This last
principle implies that “all persons are to be equal before the law,” an obvious
idea which has not been the practice for most people during most of the history
of the world. The principles of the Constitution, though not always perfectly maintained
in our history, have set forth the ideal that we each are free to speak
and worship and assembly and live as we desire, so long as our actions do not
infringe upon those basic rights of others. As the Lord summarized it, the Constitution
was established “that every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to
futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every
man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment” (Doctrine and Covenants
101:78). But for our liberties to persist, for the blessings of freedom to be preserved,
we must “maintain”—to use Captain Moroni’s word—the Constitution and its ideals:
“We should learn and advocate the inspired principles of the
Constitution.” We can bind ourselves to the liberties encapsulated in our divinely
inspired Constitution and stay committed to the “rights and protection of all
flesh” that it still seeks to achieve.
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