Mosiah 4-8: What Did Gandhi and King Benjamin Have in Common
Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well. Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not.
I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life. I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
And ye will not have a mind to injure one another, but to live peaceably, and to render to every man according to that which is his due. And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin. But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another.
I want freedom for the full expression of my personality. Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
I say unto you, if ye have come to a knowledge of the goodness of God, and his matchless power, and his wisdom, and his patience, and his long-suffering towards the children of men; and also, the atonement which has been prepared from the foundation of the world, that thereby salvation might come to him that should put his trust in the Lord, and should be diligent in keeping his commandments, and continue in the faith even unto the end of his life, I mean the life of the mortal body — I say, that this is the man who receiveth salvation, through the atonement which was prepared from the foundation of the world for all mankind.
Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.
For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.
