“Anxious to bless the whole human race”

This statement from the Prophet Joseph Smith has been on my mind today:

Love is one of the chief characteristics of Deity, and ought to be manifested by those who aspire to be the sons of God. A man filled with the love of God, is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race.

History of the Church, 4:227; from a letter from Joseph Smith to the Twelve, 15 December 1840, Nauvoo, Illinois, published in Times and Seasons, 1 January 1841 (p. 258); this letter is incorrectly dated 19 October 1840, in History of the Church.

***

I’ve been dismayed and appalled — yet again — by the anger and unpleasantness displayed by some participants in an online “conversation” that I watched unfold over the past week or two.  It reminds me of a statement from the great Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke (1729-1797), who is often considered the founder of modern political conservatism:

Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon them, in a great measure the laws depend. The law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give their whole form and colour to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals, they supply them, or they totally destroy them.

***

A piece in the Deseret News by Taylor Halverson and Scott Haines:

“What We May Have Missed in Jesus’s Loving Response to a Despised Man in the Bible”

***

I’ve always been fond of the remarkable story of Martha Hughes Cannon:

“How a Mormon pioneer woman became the nation’s first female state senator”

***

And, finally, a remarkable specimen of angelic, unearthly beauty from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem:

Pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Dona eis requiem, dona eis requiem
Pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Dona eis requiem, dona eis requiem
Agnus Dei, Agnus Dei, Agnus Dei, Agnus Dei
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Dona eis requiem, dona eis requiem
Sempiternam
Sempiternam
Requiem

Merciful Jesus, merciful Jesus, merciful Jesus, merciful Jesus,
Who takes away the sins of the world,
Grant them rest, grant them rest.
Merciful Jesus, merciful Jesus, merciful Jesus, merciful Jesus,
Who takes away the sins of the world,
Grant them rest, grant them rest.
Lamb of God, Lamb of God, Lamb of God, Lamb of God,
Who takes away the sins of the world,
Grant them rest, grant them rest,
everlasting
everlasting
Rest.

Here’s a performance by the remarkable Norwegian singer Sissel (Sissel Kyrkjebø, who performed with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir a few Christmases ago), 

Pie Jesu, by Sissel

And here’s a very different version by Marie Osmond, performed in 2010 and dedicated to her son Michael who, after battling depression and addiction for years, had committed suicide early that year:

Pie Jesu, by Marie