Funeral services of Joseph M. Tanner

Typescript about the funeral services of Joseph Marion Tanner, held August 25, 1927, at Forest Dale chapel, Salt Lake City, Utah. Includes tribute addresses given by cousin Nathan A. Tanner, Dr. George H. Brimhall, F. F. Hintze, George Thomas, Apostle Orson F. Whitney, and Senator William H. King.

, .. Funeral Services of JOSEPH M. TANNER ***** Held August 25, 19~1 at 2:00 p. m. In the Forest Dale Chapel Salt Lake City, Utah ** *** Bishop Elias S. Woodruff, Presiding • Bishop Woodruff: Toe time llns arrived to begin our s ervices and James N. Astin will r_e nder a vocal solo as our opening musical number. "Unanswered Yet" By James N. Astin "Unanswered yet the prayers your lips have pleaded, In agony of heart these many yea rs. ·Does faith begin to "fa-il, is ·hope departing, And think you all in vain these falling tears. Say not the Father hath not heard your prayers, You shall have your desire, sometime, somewhere. You shall have your desire sometime, somewhere. Unanswered yet though when you first presented This one petition at the Father's throne, It seemed you could not wait the time of asking, So urgent was your heart to make it known. Though years have passed since then do not despair, The Lord will answer you sometime, somewhere, The Lord will answer you sometime, somewhere. Unanswered yet, nay, do not say ungranted, Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done, The work began when first your prayer was uttered, And God will finish what He has begun. If you will keep the incense burning there His glory you shall see sometime, somewhere, His glory you shall see sometime, somewhere." Bishop Woodruff: The opening prayer will be offered by Elder George M. Cannon. George M. Cannon: Our Heavenly Father, we have assembled this day to pay our respects to one of Thy sons. We thank Thee, our Heavenly Father, we hnve been associated with a man of the character of J. M. Tanner. We thank Thee for the good he has done in this world, and the manner in which Thou has blessed him and endowed him with intellige nce and health and strength, and in his passing, while we mourn his early de parture, we feel to submit ourselves to Thee and say, "All things are well." We pray that Thou wilt inspire all those who $1311 speak, that those things which sha 11 be said will be of a com forting character to the survivors of this, our brother. We thank Thee for the light of the gospel and for our hope of eternal life. Fill us with Thy Holy Spirit that we may serve Thee and keep Thy commandments and walk uprightly before Thee, and that we may seek the things that are worth while in this life, and eventually save us in Thy presence, we ask humbly, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, Amen. Violin solo by Reginald Beales, with piano accompaniment Bishop Woodruff: the memory of Brother Tanne r that it has been a difficult task for the fum ily to decide who should be honored as the speakers on this occasion. And in I order that as many as possible can be honored, it has been decidecl to select five speakers, each intimately acquainted with Brother Tanner, and each of them acquainted with him under more or less different circumstances. These brethren will speak, and of necessity, their remarks will have to be brief as there are musical numbers as well. Perhaps at this time it would be prope r to r ead a telegram from John A. Widtsoe. "Mr. Kne 1nnd Tanner, 301 Walker Bank Building, Salt Lake City, Uta h. Today's developments make it unlikely that I shall be home in time for funeral. Regret this exceedingly for Dr. Tanner bad the foremost place in my affections. He helped me and many others into higher and finer forms of life. The expression of his unselfish, inspiring friendship will never be forgotten. Stnte and Church huve benefitted by his vision, wisdom and pioneering courage. Greatness was in his soul. Give my love and sympathy to the family. John A. Widtsoc." Ni:tthnn A. Tanne r: I have a very high regard for my cousin, Dr. J.M. Tanner, with whom I have been very intimate during the last twenty years. My acquaintance with him began in the winter of 1883 and 1884, when I attended the school at Provo and since that 'time I bave ·'ha·a "the opportun"ity or ·knowing him well. He came to Ogden very frequently and there were very few occasian; when he did not call upon me and we had the privilege of visiting together. I liked him very much. I liked to be in his company. He had a master mind. He was a big man, both physically and otherwise and I used to like to hear him speak of the brethren and extol their virtues because he was loyal to his friends. I wonder if it would not be proper to refer to some things briefly that indicate the strength of his mind. He was at my home one time for dinner and I said, "Cousin, I have just finished reading your Old Testament studies in two volumes. " "I never wrote a word of those, "he said. I said, "That is strange, it bears your name , " and I jokingly asked him about it and he said, "I never wrote a word of those two volumes. All I did was this: I procured the best stenographer I could find and got the Bible and put it on my knee and turned the leaves over and dictated for two hours a day for two weeks, to the stenographer what should be written. After I got through, there were less than fifty words to be changed." That was marvelous to me, and I have been in his presence when he was writing editorials and he would stop to attend to something and in fifteen minutes he would pick it up and finish it. when asked to I have heard him say, write articles for the Juvenile or Era, or some paper, all he would do was to dictate the article to the stenographer and walk off and leave it and never have it repeated to him. It was marvelous to me . At one time he said to me, "Natha ,'I have made lots of money at different times." And I said, "How is that?" And he said, "One time there was a representative of a big publisher of New York came and wanted to get the book adopted in the schools of this state and he went to Superintendent A. C. Nelson who told him they would decide upon a book to be used in the state in three or four days and the salesman remarked that would not give him time to send to New York to have the books criticized, and Mr. Nelson said, "You do not need to send to New York, the best geographer in the United States is in Salt Lake City, and I can get him here in an hour." Dr. Tanner was sent for and came over and after examining the book a few minutes the party said to him, "Can you criticize that book?" "Yes." "Can you knock it out?" "Yes." ''How much time do you need?" "Two days." "All right, go to work on it." At the end of two days the doctor came over with his criticism and showed it to the representatives of the book concern who looked it over and then sat down and wrote him out a check for thirty-five hundred dollars, which in those days, to a school teacher, was a very large amount. I said to him, "Cousin, how would it be possible for you to criti- cize a book written by the L\ .~n of Columbia University, the head man of one of the biggest universities in the United States?" To which he replied, "That was easy. Isurv cycd Pa lest inc under Schoonover and knew the lo- cation of all of the cities. This man had not been there and this man, no doubt, wrote his book from what he had read in other books." The doctor, as I remarked, had a marvelous mind. In about 1886, Dr. Tanner was on a mission to Turkey and vJ1 ile there he studied diplomacy under some of the greatest diplomats of the world. Constantinople at that time was the diplomatic center of the world, and while the Balkan war was on he acted as war correspondent for the New York Sun, and he met Von Moltke, and Baron Hirsh, and as he was leaving he said, "Baron, give me your maxim of how to get rich." The Baron said, 'Well, the fool, he raise the wheat, the wise man, he feed it." -I -r emember also, one of the .eminent doctors I met in New York City, and my name being Tanner, he referred to the doctor and told me of the high regard he had for him. He said, "He used to come back here attending conventions, and the people would crowd around him, a s he had such a persona lity th at he a ttrnc ted a ll wh o wer nenr him . " I remember well of when Dr. Widtsoe was speaking before a large gathering in Ogden and I believe he was speaking on the subject of choosing a vocation in life, and he said, "I had chosen mine and I was prepared to go .,,,,,, through with it, but , "he said, "that good man, Dr. Tanner, took me right away from what I was going to do and was doing and procured the money for / me and sent me to Harvard." And there he studied soil culture and irrigation and Dr. Widtsoe is one o(:;i8 .most outstanding men in that line in the world today, and he gaye full credit to Dr. Tanner for starting him out . right. And Broth.er D. 0. McKay. I-le was a teacher at Weber College and was a fine ma n. He hadn't any degree and I don't think his education was very high at that time, but he had a personality that gathered the boys and girls around him. He had that gift more than any man who had been there before and Dr. Tanner chose him as the principal for the college, or the academy, at that time, and the matter came up before the Board, who had already determined upon somebody else for principal but the Doctor couldn't see anybody but D. 0. McKay, and Dr. Tanner walked upon the sidewalk with the president of the Board and the president was determined to have a man with a degree and Brother Watson said, "Isn't it necessary to have a degree to take this principalship? " And he said, ''No, .no. I think more of my certificate I got for surveying the Rio Grande Railroad than what I got from Harvard," and he being the superintendent insisted upon David 0. McKay and you know how well Brother McKay did, and where - - he has arrived. The Doctor had the gift of sizin_g up young men, boys and - ... .-·- girls, and it was well worth your while to converse with him in regard to different men. He had the friendship and esteem of the prominent men of the state and many of them owe what they are to the direction he gave them and for starting them out right. He was a gifted writer and a very fine speaker and he was very familiar with world topics, and in hearing him give a talk about the war you could get a much better understanding of the conditions existing in Europe than you could from reading any number of books or magazines. He once wrote an article about six inches long, upon "China," and from reading that you got a better understanding of why J ' Germany and England were in China than you could have from reading the Literary Digest for a year. Dr. J. M. Tanner was one of the best informed men in the world in regard to our foreign r e lations and he was tendered the editorship of one of our big magazines in the east to handle that part of the magazine relating to foreign matters and he was offered six thousand <... ---- dollars a year to go back and Dr. Tanner refused the offer and other offers were made to him which he wouldn't accept. And the µ:i rties making the offer went on to California and said they would be able to make him another offer when they got back and finally they told him, upon their return, to write out his own check for whatever amount he wanted and to go back and edit that magazine. But his families were here and he wouldn't accept it. A companyof Jews came to Salt Lake City and called upon the head of the Rio Grande Railroad Company and asked to be referred to somebody whom they wished to consult in regard to a big irrigation project they were going to buy or build near Boise, Idaho. They were directed to Dr. Tanner and he went up and spent a week investigating the matter for them and while returning to Salt Lake he wondered in his mind if he should charge them as much as one hundred dollars, which, to him, was a big week's pay as a school teacher, and he wondered if they would object to paying one hundred dollars. On arriving home he tendered a report which was adverse, or unfavorable to them investing in the project, and that report saved them from investing several million dollars. But the question in his mind was whether they would object to giving him one hundred dollars for a week's work. When he got back they wrote him out a check for five thousand dollars. V He was a gifted man. A great man he was. The husband of splendid women. The ·father of a wonderful family. He said to me not long ago, "Cousin Nathan, 1 believe I can say what perhaps few man can say. I do . nor know that there is another man in the United States who can say what I can. I believe I have more children and grandchildren who have degrees .,,,. than any other man in the country." I honor and respect my cousin and re- .,., spect in the highest degrees his wives and love his children because they / are his children, and may God bless his children and his posterity throughout all times, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Bishop Woodruff: -We will now be favored with a soprano solo by Florence Sum.merhays. The City Foursquare "In that land of fade less day Lays the city Four Square. It shall never pass away, And there is no night there. God shall wipe away all tears, There is no pain, no death, nor fears, And they count not time by years, And there is no night there. And they need no sunshine bright Iri that city, Four Square. For the Lamb is all the light, And there is no night there. God shall wipe away all tears, And they count not time by years, And there is no night there. " Bisiop Wood ruff: Dr. George I-I. Brimhall of Brigham Young University will be our next speaker and he will be followed by Brother F. F. Hintz, who was a missionary companion of Brother Tanner in Turkey. George H. Brimha 11: When I looked upon the·remains of my friend, J. M. Tanner, in the casket, I couldn't but exlaim, "Majestic in death." My association with him be_gan in school, where Dr. Maeser was the choir leader, principal and teacher of most of the classes. I was nearly a decade the senicr of / / Brother Tanner, but he strode side by side with me and passed me by in ,/ ---- --- many preparations. Most of us plodded. It seems as though where we climbed .......___ the stretch to keep our places, he strode on with scarce an effort, but ~ --- there was nothing in his make-up that ever caused any of us to feel that ---- - .he was .ostentatious. He took _things.as .a .matter of course, kept his place - ·and did his work and did more than most of us could do. I became associated with him in the County Board of Education and I found him to be one who knew what an examination was worth, but one who also knew that there -----------He could always supplement the condition of what might seem a failure was something besides scholarship for the measurements of a teacher. by his keen insight into the character of the applicant, and he used to say, 'Well not so much that he is or she is just now, but what I can see he or __ she will become." I think I never knew a man who could read the possi- ,,,, _,,,,,,. .-~- ___._ bilities... of young people better than could that had a greater expanse. J. M. Tanner. His was a vIBiou-_-_ Its distance was far ahead and above that of the common man, and yet th e re was such an absence of ostentation and display of his exceptional qualifications that you always felt at home in counseling with him. Later on I knew him as the superintendent of our Church Schools arnJ there I had the opportunity or advantage of having his initiative and his clear insight and his fearless, though generous way of expressing himself. In conversation, I knew him well. We have traveled p-1uch together and I a lW<i1YS thought of him as akin to Be~in F~in in his colloquial power; his wit was of a high order and his humor was always clean. I remember Dr. Widtsoe once speaking of Dr. Tanner, saying, "I have known him seemingly a 11 of my manhood life. I have been with him under various circumstances but I have never seen anything - -- manifest in him except that which would indicate cleanliness and choiceness of character." . Just the other day in speaking of him to Franklin S. Harris, presi- dent of Brigham Young University, I said, "He was a man of mighty vision, of strong, fearless· ability .of no common order." I love the family. ' I have no small admiration for what he has contributed to the age in which he lived. His sons and daughters have occasion to be proud of their father, and his wives, to my mind, are fortunate in having such a man for a compansion. He inherited sweetness of character from his mother and sturdiness and strength- from his father. people, and The Tanner family are a group of goodly J. M. was one of the leaders of the group. My hand of friend- ship is stretched out to greet his memory. My love for his loyalty goes out in honor to him. He was an appreciative man. In the next-to-the-last conversation I had with him he said, "Brother Brimhall, people are good to me. My brothers are exceptionally good to me and the Lord has been good to me beyond my desserts." We have in him a man of thought, a man of action anc..l a man of appreciation. Goc..l bless those he left behind of his posterity, that tl1cy think of their father what you a re, a noble man, is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. F. F. Hintze: My brothers and sisters, it affords me great pleasure to have this honor to say a few words in regard to Dr. Joseph Marion Tanner. I feel my weakness and incompetency in speaking this afternoon following learned men whose lives have been spent in educational pursuit, and of course, with their experience, they can be more eloquent than I can. But I want to tell you, my brothers and sisters, while I cannot speak from an educational standpoint, I want to call your attention to another point of view where Dr. J . .M. Tanner .has .come into my life. Of all .the .atta.inments in life perhaps the greatest is the development of character. We will take much of this with us. Much that we acquire in life is left in the world, and we leave our impression on the world for what we do. Dr. Tanner came into my life in ------~ January, 1888,'. when the authorities of ttis Church sent me to Turkey·as a missionary, and I met Dr. J. M. Tanner, I believe, the first time although I had known of him before. He had known me because it was my fourth mission and I had written consider.=.1ble for the News and other papers and was very well known among the Latter Day Saints, and we became very well acquainted and I want to say to you it was a very lasting acquaintance. I discovered that I had found a man that was a true man to the Kingdom of God. I had spent years preaching the king,.·.-',:' of God and when I got to Turkey and found a man like Brother Tannef, mat loved his work and had obeyed the same law I hi..1d, and had a large family. - - I was very happy indeed. -- I have one , more child than he has, otherwise we have kept apace and we have met very frequently and discussed our financial affairs and fa.PilY af~s, over our work, and our faith, and of our families, in a very intimate manner. I do not know of anybody in life l have gone to for advice with more confidence than Dr. J. M. Tanner. I want to relate to you one incident that is of value .to .me .and .to 11.inLand,Jo ~his ~family. .It .is Just.a.little.incident, .and it may not have any :value than as a matter of interest, but you know, as missionaries, we deal with the things that are sometimes very trying to us. We cannot demonstrate our faith like these men who have been talking can demonstrate mathematics and history and grammar and all of those things, ·but you know a missionary that goes out and preaches the gospel of Jesus Ch-rist, ·he has to have n testimony and we have to have a testimony and assurance that will enable us to go into the, very jaws of death to perform the labors that we have to do. I wasn't very well educated. I had some education and tried very hard to learn something in life and I came to Turkey, and the Lord gave me a small vision of my mission before I got there and in this dream - we can call it a vision because it was true - in this vision ca me Dr. J. M. Tanner and so far as I am concerned, and so far as he is concerned it was a testimony to each of us that we were both destined for that mission. It was this: When I was in Denmark, before I knew anything about going to Turkey, I had a very great ambition to do as much as anybody else. ful. If anybody was faithful, I wanted to be just as faith- If a man had done good work in his Church, I wanted to do likewise, and I had a feeling I would like to go on some foreign mission, where I could be some lender of n mission or do something in that line and it so happened I presided over a conference in Scandinavia and we had cleaned up the house and I felt it was a place where the Spirit of the Lord could dwell, and I dreamed I was away in some foreign country. I didn't know where, and I saw a city lying in a swaii or a hollow, and right after I came to th is city I saw a man standing right in front of me, and in the vision I viewed the man and it made such a great impression on me I didn't forget it and I woke up and I told my fellow missionaries I had a dream, and one of them, being of a very jovial nature, said, ''Brother Hintze, I will tell you what it is." He was new in the mission and he said, "I will take you off and show you that city, and I will show you I am the fellow you saw in your dream, "and I said, . "AH right, Glen, if you are the man, you . can show me the city." And so we went out in a long circuit and he said when he showed me a city, "Isn't this the city you saw?" and I said, "No, that is not the city. " and so it went on and it went past a joke because this was the joking side of the question, and he and I forgot about it, except about this city, as far as looking for a town was concerned, and it was looked upon as the same kind of a dream that doesn't have any great purpose. But I came to Constantinople and met Dr. Tanner, and he was then practically the ,,, / :-/p Co " president of the mission. He wasn't entirely so, because Jacob Scori was./ there before him and was nominally the president, but as you have had Dr. Tanner's character described to you, he was a man of character and a man S'pt)f/ who made his presence felt, and immediate1y he towered above Brother Scori although he was just as well educated as he was, but he immediately submitted to Dr. Tanner as I did, and he became actively the president of the ------ to mission and he sent me to . learn the language µnd one day he suggested to me, "Brother Hintze, let's go out to Robert's college and - visit the college, and see the professors. ft . They were Americans. v,, . It was / on the Bosphorus and it was an American institution there, and he said we will take the steamboat up the Bosphorous, which is really a river fourteen or fifteen miles long, connecting the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmora and .we .went .up and-got.off ..the ..steame.r ,and t~t the ,pr,0fes-s0r:s .. and had a nice time, and coming out of the college, ''Brother Hintze," he said, "suppose we , walk down on this side of the Bosphorus and follow the river along, it is nice and level and we can walk down to Constantinople, and if we get tired we can take the boat." There was always a boat plying between Constantinople and the suburbs, and so we started down there and as we came to a ·certain place we came to a ridge and we came -co a turn and he was ahead of me about a rod and a half and as I looked at him, and then looked down below ' It was just as plain to me as I see any of you here today. me, I saw the city. I said, "Stop just a minute." And I said, "Brother Tanner, here is the dream I saw years ago." ft I saw this little village lying here in this valley. I have never seen anything like it before and here it is directly below us and you are the man I saw in my dream." Well, now then, you would say, 'What was there to anything like that, what was there to a dream like that?" Nothing, very much, but it showed to me before ever I thought of it, before Dr. Tanner ever thought of it, both of us had been singled out by the power of the Almighty for this mission in Turkey, and it was a tes i·.: ,:··ony to him and it was a testimony to me and I · went to work with greater perseverance and determination and assurance thnt God hac.l rcn lly sclcctF.d me for that imporrnnt mission .. I went to work and learned the language and brought many people into the Church and esta blished many branches and translated the Book of Mormon into the Turkish language and published it, and all of this by the power of God. I want to say one word more. Dr. Tanner came into my life in this manr~ r, and with this came something that a man cannot rob me of and that is the treasured association and memories I have of Dr. Tanner. His temporal efforts in life were directed largely in the educational. historical, and geogTaphical fields - I am a pretty good geographer myself, and became well acquainted with the geography of the world. But in ·our private conversations we talked over so many of the intimate things of life. Many men can tell another about his family, how he married them, and how they came into his life, and how happy he is, and in our conversations we were very intimate with each other and we were very free. Now brothers and - -God- has sisters, he has performed a work, and obeyed the ordinances of the gospel that will take him into the presence of the Gods, for eternity. ./ said to his servants, that those who keep all his commandments shall receive all there is in the kingdom of heaven to be given to his faithful children, and I want to say to you, brothers and sisters, I am seventy-three years old and have had a very side experience in this Church and I am one who prides himself with knowing the gospel of Jesus Christ very well, and I have an absolute faith in the gospel and in the servants of the Lord, and I will tell you, Brother Tanner belonged to the same class. Brother Tanner's kingdom will be an eternal kingdom and he will be numbered among the Gods, and when I pass away, which may not be very long for I feel the weaknesses of the body upon rn<=, and although I feel very well, my time may not be long, and one of the first men I expect to meet is J. M. Tanner. Why shouldn't I hope to be with him and others who kept the commandments of God. We have very large families and brothers and sisters we are not ashamed, _____...... . --;r .....,__.., and I never saw the day when -- J. M. Tanner was ashamed of them. We have something some of you never can have. Whatever you could have had at one time _you cannot have it today if you obey the laws of the land. We know we may have the scorn of some people who do not understand, but we have the consciousness of having done what we know to be right and what we were almost commanded to do or at least advised to do, and we have the hope and anticipation of eternal life, based on keeping the commandments of the Lord and that is the lot of J. M. Tanner and other men who have ·kept the commandments of the -Lord. God bless his sons and daughters and family that they may never waver in the faith their father . and mothers had. When he married these women he didn't marry them because their lives were going to be very happy ones, but to keep the commandments of the Lord, and as one sister said to me day before yesterday, she said, "These are my honor marks." God bless all of his children and his wives and br9thers and sisters, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. ---- Violin selection by Reginald Beales, with piano accompaniment. George Thomas: My brothers and sisters, I was asked to limit my remarks not to exceed ten minutes and I shall make an effort to do so. Brother Tanner for over thirty-five years. I have known I was well acquainted with him to immediat~ly after he came from Logan to take charge of the~- Y. College. As a matter of fact, before the school opened, I happened to be where he was, out as we used to be, campaigning for students. I attended college when he was there as its directing head and became very we 11 acquainted with him. He was the inspiration of the small group of young men who went .,,,,, east to Harvard to go to school. He secured the money in the way of a loan ...f0r seve.:ra.L..of...them .. Jt,--,was....th1:ough~his _influence ..th.at .the m011e.y ..w.as . loaned "" through the Board of Trustees of the college at Logan. Those who did not t1~ul money at least received his instructions and inspirations to grow and I know he inspired others to go from other sections of the state, and that ,... - ---- was the first group of students that went to Harvard from this state. I ___,. think there is still one or two of them living in Provo. Brother Tanner was an inspiration to ·young ·people and ·was ·a -splendid speaker ·and also kept well informed on the topics of the day and coul~ reach young people very successfully. After leaving college we went to ~arvar9 and were students in the same institution. He went into the law school and also studied the sciences but did not remain to complete his course. After he came back he was president of the Agricultural College and l became an instructor in the B. Y. College and by him I was employed to go to the Agricultural College as an instructor, and I knew him very intimately there for two years and then he and I retired to go east to school. Before leaving, however, I want to point this out to emphasize this because before leaving we had a few words over a matter and both of us were very mu~h wrought up and as I was going east very sh1~nly I didn't see him any more and this little incident lingered in the minds of both of us and he came back after three years and I was on the street and I had on a European s~it of rather odd cut and that singled me out and he saw me and raised his hands to me in greeting and ca me across the street to see me and we were friends, and I wanted a position and he said, ''We will go out and get it," which we did. I point that out to show that you could differ with him and still retain his friendship and I don't think there were ever any two men in the state .that differed more than he .and Ldid, and .s.ome.tirnes .they were .acute but it didn't enter into our friendship. Brother Tanner was a good student at Harvard and had finarces permined he would have completed the course with credit to himself. Upon returning he became very active educationally and made the influence of the Agricultural College felt. At that time the Agricultural College was felt to be a school to make boys farm, but the growth and development of that institution was very largely brought about 'by J. M. Tanner. Some- times the institution was in great need of support from the legislature and Brother Tanner was able to go and get that support through his infll,!ence with the Board. I have known him for beyond thirty-five years. him and I always liked him, and he liked me. I liked I like him now, and I love his memory and I would like to say to his children, the strife of battle is over and today we can sit here and judge him for his achievements and I think it can be said to his children they will do well to honor and venerate the memory of their father. We may not agree with him in everything but he lived we ll and lived nobly ant:. c ut out in this state a very clean drift in _..... ... the educational work that will bt< jmembercd and will live on and on for a long time to come. He was on the Church and state Board of Education and in each of those places he carred with him a great deal of influence and in the early dnys was the means of shaping the educational policies in the state of Utah when, after statehood, they were growing very rapidly. I think that takes up my time. pleased to do so. I could say much more and I would be I pray God will bless his family and that they will press on in the educational field for which Dr. Tanner did so much and for which he was so well adapted. Bishop Woodruff: Brother Orson F. Whitney of the Quorum of the Twelve will be our next speaker. Orson F. Wh imey: 'When to the common rest that crowns our days, Cal led in the noon of life the good man goes, Or full of years and ripe in wisdom, lay His silver temples in their last repose; When o'er the buds of youth the death wind blows, And blights the fairest; when our bitter tears Stream as the eyes of those that loved us close, We think of what they were, with many fears, Lest goodness die with them and leave the coming years." So says the American poet, William Cullen Bryant in the opening stanza of his poem, "The Ages." We cannot, as Latter-day Saints, share the poet's idea that all goodness is in danger of dying out of the world because a good man or a good woman goes to his or her eternal rest. We believe that with Browning, 'That God is in His Heaven and all is right with the world," and if the veil ::•.-ere lifted which hides us from each . other and the heaven from ourselves we would know that the immigration of the spirit into this world is quite equal to the emigration out of it and the balance is preserved - the equilibrium is maintained by Him who does all things well. But it is time for solemn thoughts. It is a time when we naturally dwe 11 upon the character, disposition and traits of our loved ones who have gone before and we do this not in the hope of changing any record they have made, for we can make no hair black or white, nor add to or take from their stature, one _jot or tittle. But we can com• fort those that remain if God wills and helps us to do so, and when we dwell upon the virtues of the departed, it is for this purpose, to comfort those who mourn and instruct those who are left behind. This is almost nothing to a Latter-day Saint. as it is to come into it. It is just as natural to pass out of this world Birth is the doorway into the world and death .is .the .doorway our of it. That is a common sense view that we take of it and the only sad thing about what we call death is the separation - the parting. Shakespeare speaks of the inevitable parting as a sweet solo, I have seen mothers weep on the wedding day of a beloved daughter. I have . seen fathers grieving - perhaps I have grieved _myself, in saying farewell to a beloved son called upon to a mission to a foreign shore, but would that mother wish it to be otherwise? Did I, as a faithful father mourn over his departure, mourn over the call he had received to go on a foreign mission? ·why no. I esteemed it as the greatest honor that one can come to, a man to be a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, and have children who are servants of the Lord, and daughters who are handmaidens to the Almighty. That mother wept because it was to be the vacant chair in the household and a vacant place at the table, and she rejoiced secretly in the thought thnt her daughter had gone forth and found anoth e r family and would add to the glory of the original household. And what father can feel differently to what I felt when my son said "Good-bye" to go to a distant land to preach the gospel? I would not have had it otherwise and yet I felt bad at the parting and that is all there is that is bad to this thing called death. I used to think that my little playmate, whose funeral I attended, was about to be put into the ground to stay there. That was the view I took of death, a childish view, but it has all passed away. I put away childish things when I became a man and especially when I became a servant of God. I might have just as well thought that the rain drops that soak into the soil remain there, as to think that a child of God, fashioned in His image, who lays his weary body down to rest,. remains in the ground where we lay his mortal remains. But every drop of dew evaporates and goes back to the clouds from whence it came, and every drop of water seeps back to the ocean from whence it came. There is a universal law demanding this and everything returns to where it comes from and men and women are no exceptions, and we have the glorious hope and knowledge - and .it isn't really only a hope, we have the assurance, the knowledge of eventual reunion between the spirit and the body - the body that returned to the earth as it was, but the spirit unto God who gave it so that we know what the future will bring forth. We know that we lived before this life. We know what will come after this life, and we know, as no other people know, what God expects of us while we are here. I presume the first man who ever saw the sun go down thought it had gone down forever, thought it was a new sun that came up the next morning to give light to the world, but it was the same old sun. It had only set for him to shine for others, beyond his horizon, and encircled the globe to come up the next morning. There you have a symbol of death, and a symbol of the resurrection written in the greatest book 9f nature, which we will not stop to read. If we did we could draw com- fort from its pages because God has written all over His universe lessons that teach us of the immortality of the soul, but we resist the truth. We cannot allow ourselves to believe only what we see and hear and feel - by these five senses, which are very easily deceived. We demand, like Thomas, to see and to feel before we can believe. There was a great poet once, who in an age that denied the pre -existence of man, was lit up with an inspiration from Heaven and broke forth in these beautiful li:nes: "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, The soul that rises with us, our life star, Hath had elsewhere in setting, ' And cometh from afar." How do you think the world received that declaration? They_ made him recant, just as they did when Gallileo declared the moon and earth moved a round the sun, and not the sun a round the earth, but on peril of the rack he recanted, but Gallileo knew the earth moved around the sun, in spite of the inquisition. You cannot compel a man to believe or disbelieve. right. Gallileo knew right and so did Wordsworth. He knew he was I said they made him recant. He recanted in these words, sub- stantially: He didn't mean to convey so much as his would-be censors thought he meant. Now what was it in that that the world should have resisted? The Savior had taught and they had r eceived his teachings, that he lived before this lif.=. He said in his prayer to the Almighty Father, "Glorify Thou me with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was." Yes, they could receive that. It was in their sacred book. They could believe with the Apostle Paul, "In the beginnin was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God." Oh, yes, they could believe that of the Son of God but who was this man that he should claim a pre-existence? No, he had a beginning. It was not until a man named Joseph Smith came along and taught that mad had a pre-existence and that man is a God in embryo, and what is predicated of one, you can predicate of the other, the difference being experience, development. Man is the child of God, and an eternal being co-eternal in his fundamental principles with his Heavenly Father. -We have the same right to .believe in the pre -existence of man that we have in the pre-existence of our older brother, Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. The A post le of Jesus Christ, on the Isle of Patmos, in the year 96 of the Christian Era, had a great picture presented to him of what was coming in the future ages. He saw the restoration of the gospel in the latter days. He saw the coming of the millenium and he saw the coming forth of the just and righteous who will be caught up to meet Christ or brought up to meet Him when He comes; the resurrection of the just who die in the Lord. He saw the resurrection of the unjust, who lived not again until the thousand years are finished, and afterwards he says, "And I saw a great white throne and Him that sat on it, from whose face the heavens and the earth fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works, and the sea gave us the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works. 11 There is only one addition that I would make to those sacred words ·u it was my prerogative ·to ·do ·so. ·r wouldadd,'."That man be ·judgea not only by his works, but by the things that they desired to do, and could not because they had no opportunity for doing so. 11 And Joseph, the prophet, made this clear when after beholding the various glories of the eternities in the Celestial, Terestrial, and the Telestial, and having made up his mind that the last word was spoken and that they who would attain to the highest glories of heaven must obey the gospel here in their proper person. In a later vision he beheld the Celestial ·Kingdom again and he saw his brother, Alvin, there, a man who had never been baptized, who had had no opportunity to obey the gosepl, for he lived before the gospel came, like millions of others in the past ages consigned to perdition by orthodox christianity teachings, because they have never had an opportunity to belong to a church that didn't exist. Think of the logic of it. Joseph Smith says, 'While I marveled at seeing my brother there, 11 and he was a good man - just as good as Joseph and Hyrum, but had never received the gosp~l because it was not here, and had never joined the Church because it was not organized yet , had not been baptized because there were no baptisms in his day, Joseph Smith says, 'While I marveled, a voice fell from Heaven saying, 'All those who would have received the gospel had they been permit ted to tarry, a re heirs of the Celest ial Kingdom'." That turns the key - throws ·open the door for million s of God's creatu res who never had the opport unity to obey the gospel and yet were consig ned to perditi on by the orthod ox teachin gs of the day. Joseph Smith says that was false doctri ne. God will never judge any man for an opport unity he never pos- sessed . He will judge them by the desire s of their hearts , by their motives and by what they wanted to do and would have done, had the opport unity been theirs . And what better standa rd of judgm ent than the one which John descri bed - every man judged by his works , incom parabl e superi or to that concep tion that arose later, that some men are predes tined to be saved, and some are predes tined to be damne d, regard less of their works anothe r man-m ade doctri ne. God's doctri nes are full of inspira tion. They judge us by what we do, and what we desire to do. That takes our motive s into consid eration and all things are weighe d in the balanc e and allowa nces made that we cannot make in our human , short- sighte d judgem ent. The resurr ection was a difficu lt doctrin e even for the Apostl es of Christ . No wonde r. There was no resurr ection up to that time. There had been no resurr ection on this earth until Christ arose. The first fruits of him that slept - the author of the resurr ection . Although he had told the discip les, "I have power to lay down my life and take it up again, " they couldn 't quite grasp it. Job had said, "For I know that my redeem er liveth, and that He shall stand in the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destro y this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." Yet these discip les were slow to believ e the strang e doctri ne of the resurrection , and the Savior had to come to them in person after he had risen from the grave and had to reassure them when they were abot;t to flee, saying, "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I, myself, handle me, and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me have." And they we re convinced, and they glorified God because He had fulfilled His word. One apostle was absent, Thomas - surnamed "the Doubter," and when his brethren told him the Lord had been there he said, "I will not believe it unless I can feel the prints of the nails in his hands and feet, and thrust my hand into his side." And the Savior condescended to come again to convince this man, Thomas, that he had indeed risen, because Thomas was one of the special witnesses and he had as much right to hear and see and feel as the other apostles. Let's do not be too hard on him. He must be qualified as they had been, to go forth and preach the I risen Christ to a wicked world. It would not have done for him or any other apostle to go forth and say, " We believe that Christ is risen." They must know, because the salvation of the world depended on them. The world, at large, must believe, because it is better to believe without seeing - there is greater spiritual development. Knowledge removes the opportunity for the exercise of faith, and swallows it up but special witnesses are made to know and to preach what they know, but the world at large is required, for their own good, to believe without seeing, and so it was with Thomas. The Lord came to him and said, ''Thomas reach hither thy hand and fe e l the prints of the nails and thrust your hand into my side, and be not faithless, but believing, "and Thomas, oven-.·hel med by this, after feeling of his side, exclained, "My Lord and my God," and Thomas died for his convictions too, as did the others - all save this John who was to tarry on th c ca rth until the Lord com e s in His glory, and ~erform a wonderful mission in the last days. We have these same convictions. By the te stimony of th e Holy Ghost, we have the assurance that we sha 11 rise again, that we shall join our loved ones in the eternal world, that light will cleave to light there as it does here, but upon higher and holier principles. And we know as no other people know, what it means to die, what .it.means to be p:i.r:.ted. W.e ..know whe.r.e ..we ..came..fr:om, ..why we .are .here., where we are going when we leave this earth, and we face the future without fear. This good man has simply gone ahead of us. acquainted with Dr. Tanner. I was not intimately I knew him first when I was a chance visitor at the B. Y. Academy in the year 1879, and he was a rising young teacher under Dr. Maeser. I have known him casually all my life since then. Only a few months ago I met him ·in ·front of the Hotel Utah and I stopped and talked with him as I always did and expr~ssed my joy at seeing him looking and feeling ~tt~r, and hoped that he might regain his health, but it / seems it was not to be. While I cannot speak from intimate knowledge of his life and cha racter, I have a conviction what has been said here today is true and I commend it to his wives, and children and friends, as the truth concerning their husband, and their father and kinsman. Do not look upon death as anything gloomy. Itis only a great relief. It is a great relief from the pain and sorrows of mortality. We have a conviction, a testimony that these things are true. It is not a mere hope with us. We do not say with Tennyson, "I hope to see my Pilot, face to face, when I have crossed the bar," but we speak with the assurance as expressed through the lips of another poet, our own Eliza Snow, "Father, Moth e r, when at last I've complctet.1 a 11 you sent m~ forth to do, F iJ.thcr, Mother, may I meet you in your royal courts on high. " That is the best time to die - wh•~ther in infancy, youth, or old age, when we have done the things we came to do. That is the best time to die. That is my only concern regarding death. I want ~o do the things I have come to do, so that when I meet my Father and Mother, in Heaven - eternal Father and Mother, I can hear them say, 'Well done, though good and faithful servant, enter to the joy of thy Lord." God bless you all, I ask in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Senator William H. King: I am very much surprised to be called upon to speak a few words before concluding these impressive services, but I feel it a duty, as. well as a pleasure to come and join with the family and friends of our deceased borther, upon this sad occasion and pay tribute to his memory and to his valiant services in life. May I say, too, I met Dr. Tanner first when I a.ea. ct.~ -m Y went as a boy, fifteen years of age, to the Brigham Young College, for the purpose of entering that great institution and receiving instruction under Dr. Maeser. From that time until the present, may I say, I have been a friend of Dr. Tanner. I have met him often and rejoice in my associations with him, and have rejoiced in the good works he has done as an educator in this state. He comes from a good family. The Tanner family was, to -- use a common expression, a family of good blood. John Tanner was one of the earliest members of the Church and he w:JS a valiant defender of the doctrines of the Church and gave his life in the advocacy of the principles he had accepted in his younger days and he has left in this state and in sur- rounding states, a great progeny, anj so far as I know, they have devoted themselves to the work of their great pioneer ancestor md have brought honor to his name as well as to the Tanner family. I am sure there is no occasion, as has been so eloquently stated, to ' mourn and grieve up::m this occasion. Dr. Tanner has performed his mis' sion here upon this earth, and has gone to the great Beyond. I rejoice in 1:heiact that we too have that assurance-which Elder'Whitney has ·so beautifully characterized and which has come to us through the testimony of Jesus Christ. And in these days of doubt and uncertainty, in this day when atheism is rearing its ugly head, not only in Christian countries, but elsewhere, it seems ·we should rejoice beyond words in the fact that we have a knowledge of the divinity of this work, and the fact that God lives. I remember when I was in Russia a few years ago, there was a great contest over religion between the Bolsheviks and the Greek Orthodox Church, and an effort was made to suppress the faith of the people and to take their faith from them, and establish a cruel and ruthless materialism in the hearts of the people. A great debate took place in Moscow before I was there and I heard much about it after I got there and there was selected an orator from the Bolsheviks to renounce the conception of God, and the fact of the resurrection of Christ. One of their most eloquent men addressed the people and worked them into a frenzy of excitement and denounced everything that had been founded by the Church, and after he had finished and the congre gation was about to dismiss there walked up the aisle a priest with a long, black robe, with a long --- hanging down his shoulders. It was the day before he slept(?), as I recall it, and he lifted up his hands before that great mulrituuc who were brought to sil<.:nce by his impressive bearing, and he said to them, "Christ has arisen." Immediately, as if there had been an electric shock, the great mass of the audience that a short time before had been applauding the Bolshevik orator, arose and repeated the formula, "He is risen indeed." Again the priest said, "Christ is risen." And again the audience responded, "He is risen, indeed. " Finally, for the last time, according to the formula, he said, "Christ is risen," and the audience again declared with emphasis, ''He is risen indeed." He then lifted up his hands and said, "What is there, brothers, for us to do? Let us go to our homes and serve God. " That great audience, impressed by the fact that Christ was a living being, that Christ had risen from the grave, and that Christianity was a living thing and also impressed with the prejudice of the Bolshevik in his denunciation of the doctrines of the immortality of the soul, and feeling that his denunciation was but vaporings of a deranged mind, the audience went out with bowed heads, and I was told the following day the Churches were crowded with men, women and children, bowing their knees to Christ, the Lord. We know that Christ is risen, and that we are the Children of Gold. We know that when we are laid in the tomb, upon the resurrection morning our bodies will come forth and we will receive eternal life and rejoice in the presence of God, and enter upon the great work that lies before us and all children of God. I rejoice in the fact that God has spoken and I know that Dr. Tanner had a testimony of these things and accepted the things revealed to Joseph Smith and in our sorrow today, may we be guided, as we have been guided in the past, by the testimony of Jesus Christ, that we may go forth as our brother and may ultimately be raised from the grave and receive life etema l. God bless the family and all those who mourn and may they be given faith and hope and courage to bear the duties and responsibilities of life and to meet the sorrows of the hour and may we so perform our work that we may rejoice with the "faithful in the resurrection with those who 'have served God and kept His commandments. Bishop Woodruff: At the conclusion of our services the prayer will be offered by Amasa L. Clark, and the music will be by the Lindsay Sisters, and the grave will be dedicated by Elder ------ Violin duet 'The End of a Perfect Day, " Lindsay Sisters, accompanied by piano. • Amasa L. Clark: Our Father in Heaven, we are deeply impressed with the feeling that we would like to follow our Savior in the paths of the righteous, and bow our beads in reverence and gratitude for the peace and blessings of this occasion; we ask Thy favors to be upon us, and especially upon those who have occasion to be separated from the life of a great man. Bless us as we are about to complete this service upon this sacred occasion. Sanctify to our good th is beautiful service of preaching and song and music to which we have listened, and the testimonies of great men who have spoken -·:· \- with divine authority on this occasion, we humbly pray, in the name of Jesus, A men.