Today's Maxwell Quote

From All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience (1980), 108-109:

The Prophet Joseph spoke of how apostates often bring severe persecutions upon their former friends and associates. "When once that light which was in them is taken from them they become as much darkened as they were previously enlightened, and then, no marvel, if all their power should be enlisted against the truth, and they, Judas like, seek the destruction of those who were their greatest benefactors." (HC 2:23.)

Strange, how often defectors leave the Church, but they cannot leave it alone!

One of the often unappreciated blessings of following the Brethren is that their counsel and direction will spare us the unnecessary disappointments and the anguish of trying to reconcile revealed religion with the ways of the world. Foolish as that attempt is, some try to do it anyway. As Elder James E. Talmage observed: "The reason that there is a lack of spirit and force in the religious teaching of the world is in part because they have tried to harmonize the Christian faith with the foolishness of men; and, of course, it will not harmonize with falsehood and with the doctrines of men." (Conference Report, October 1921, p. 187.)

Perhaps one of the reasons people try desperately at times to effect a "merger" is that they still want either the praise of the world or the ways of the world. They think, somehow, to have them both when, in fact, the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we must clearly choose some things and reject others. Mortal philosophies can be mixed and merged with each other almost at will, because they are not totally dissimilar, but we can't weld the Lord's way to the world's ways.