Wednesday, May 28, 2014

IS THERE A GOD? (An address delivered by R. Verne McCullough over Radio Station KSL in 1928)

This is my great grandfather, R. Verne McCullough.
Raymond Verne McCullough with hat
Raymond Verne McCullough
Raymond Verne McCullough
Raymond Verne McCullough


In 1928, at the age of 36, he gave an address on KSL Radio, called "Is There A God?"

Forty-one years later, President Harold B. Lee sent a letter to R. Verne McCullough's wife, referring to this address:

THE COUNCIL OF THE TWELVE 47 E. SOUTH TEMPLE STREET SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH 84111
May 29, 1969
Mrs. R. Verne McCullough 304 East 1st South Salt Lake City, Utah
Dear Irene:
First, may I thank you for permitting me to have a visit with Verne, This radio address reminded me of a series of talks that he gave on the radio in a kind of running debate with one of the young ministers whose name has escaped me. Verne was a great "defender" of the faith with his brilliant legalistic mind. He seemed to revel in projecting the doctrines of the Church and pointing out the errors and weaknesses which were foreign to true doctrine.
This address is one which would make an appeal to scholars like the Princeton University professors. It is well documented with statements from recognized scholars as 'well as his own personal witness which he speaks of as "heart-knowledge" which means in the language of another, things the heart understands beyond what the mind knows.
I would think this would be something you might wish to give to your own children and grandchildren to remember Verne, and possibly to hand out to the sophisticated doubters in our day of great challenge and upheaval.
I would certainly encourage you to send it along as requested by the Princeton University Library. I would find nothing to criticize and much to commend.
May the Lord continue to bless you during these days when memories such as these will recall the tremendous capacity which your husband manifested in so many ways.
Please accept my commendation for this privilege you have granted and be assured always of our deep affection for you and Verne and your family.
Sincerely yours, Harold B. Lee

I have typed up the radio address here for Verne's posterity to read and treasure as President Harold B Lee suggested. (If you would like a PDF copy of this address, just e-mail me at marie.familyhistory@gmail.com)

IS THERE A GOD?
(An address delivered by R. Verne McCullough over Radio Station KSL in 1928)

            “He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him,” spake Paul the Apostle to the Hebrew saints.
            The wave of indifference, infidelity and atheism, which is sweeping the centers of higher learning with its baneful influences on the uncultured as well as the cultured minds of America and Great Britain, has created considerable alarm in religious circles. 
            No longer are we justified in lulling ourselves into security of God’s existence under the cloak of the time-worn declaration that the existence of God does not admit of being proved; nor are we justified in deriding the attempts of thinking students to curb the ever-growing tendency to infidelity.  One thoughtful writer has said:
            “Proofs for the existence of God coincide with the grounds for the belief in God; they are simply the real grounds for the belief established and expounded in a scientific manner.  If there be no such proofs, there are also no such grounds; and a belief which has no ground, if possible at all, can be no proper belief, but an arbitrary self-made, subjective opinion.”
            If we would advance in religion, it must be, not by getting rid of our belief in God, but by getting deeper and wider views of His character and operations, and by conforming our hearts and lives more sincerely and faithfully to our knowledge.
            To reinforce our convictions of God’s existence, and to arrest the insidious inroads of modern infidelity in the minds of the younger generation, I address myself to the subject, “Does God exist?”
            The Bible does not offer arguments to prove the existence of Deity, but it gives us a picture of the world with God at work in it, which devout religious folk appreciate and instinctively recognize as true.  May I suggest, however, that the whole need no physician, but to doubting minds, comparable to my own, this treatise is offered.
            There are two methods of investigating a problem.  The first method is that used by orthodox religious individual, who begins his research with certain well-defined conclusions, and then searches for facts to support them.  The second method is that employed by the careful scientific thinker who, like a little child, untrammeled by pre-conceptions, follows where the facts lead him, irrespective of previously wrought out opinions or beliefs.  To those friends listening on the air tonight, who have nothing in common with revealed religion, I ask you in all candidness to forget whatever bias or prejudice you may have, and investigate this problem with a scientific untrammeled mind.
            We will first consider the issue in relation to man’s understanding, and then its message in relation to his deeper feelings and emotions.  Time will only permit the setting up of a few guide posts pertaining to this all important question.
            One of the oldest and yet basic evidences of God’s reality is the general consent of mankind to His existence.  The conception of God and its kindred ideas of religion seem to have been intricately interwoven into the thought and action of all races of men.
            Plutarch summed up the argument in this wise:
            “If you search the world, you may find cities without walls, without letters, without kings, without money; but no one ever saw a city without a Deity, without a temple, or without prayers.”
            This universal idea of God’s existence is aptly stated by Aristotle:
            “What seems true to some wise men is somewhat probable; what seems true to most or all wise men is very probable; what most men, both wise and unwise, assent to, still more resembles truth; but what men generally consent in has the highest probability, and approaches so near to demonstrated truth, that it may pass for ridiculous arrogance and self-conceitedness, or for intolerable obstinacy and perverseness to decry it.”
            The whole world, it is urged, must surely be right.
            The design argument is one of the most ancient and yet convincing of all.  Where there is a design there must be a designer.  In other words, the architecture of Heaven denotes directing intelligence just as surely as the contrivances of men.  For what is meant by design?  Contrivance: the adaptation of means to an end.  “Such adaptation,” says a thoughtful writer, “indicates contrivance for given purpose, and contrivance is the evidence of intelligence, and intelligence is the attribute of mind, and the intelligent mind that built the stupendous universe is God.”
            Everywhere in nature is the evidence of an intelligent designer.  When rain falls on the soil of a field adapted for vegetable growth, the filtration of rainwater through the soil does not disturb one particle of all nutritive matter which it contains available for vegetable growth, such as potash, silicic acid, ammonia, etc.  The most intermittent rain is unable to abstract from it (except by the mechanical action of floods) any of the chief requisites for its fertility. The particle of mould not only firmly retains all matter nutritive to vegetable growth, but also immediately absorbs such as are contained in the rainwater.  Did blind chance bring about such a condition, or is there intelligent super vision over the organic adaptations of nature?
            The evidences of a supreme designer crowd still more upon the vision when we come to the human mind.  “What can be more absurd,” asks Montesquieu, “than to imagine that a blind fatalistic force has produced human beings?”
            Robert Flint states:
            “The complicated and refined adjustments of the body to the mind, and of the mind to the body, are so numerous and interesting that their study has now become the task of a special class of scientific men.  A very little disorder in the organization of the brain, such as even microscopic postmortem examination may fail to detect, suffices to cause hallucinations of the senses, to shake intellect from the throne, to paralyze the will, and to corrupt the sentiments and affections.  How precise and skillful must the adjustment be between the sound brain and the sane mind.  Who sufficiently realizes the mystery of wisdom which lies in the familiar fact that the mind, by merely willing to use the members of the body, sets in motion instantaneously and unconsciously, without effort and without failure, cords, and pulleys and levers, joints and muscles, of which it only vaguely, if at all, surmises the existence?  The laws of our various appetencies, affections, and emotions, and their relation to their special ends or objects, the nature of the several intellectual faculties and their subservience to mental culture, and still more the general constitution of the mind as a system consisting of a multitude of powers under the government of reason and conscience, present to us vast fields filled with evidences of Divine Wisdom.”
            What is this great creative director under whose supervision a thinking human machine is made possible? Is it just hazard—chance—or is it more comforting to call it nature? Voltaire, the great French thinker, in discussing this question, took a watch from his pocket, and as he looked upon the same, remarked that he could plainly see a means adapted to an end, denoting contrivance, and that contrivance clearly established to his mind that there was an intelligence behind the contrivance; that intelligence was the attribute of mind, and the intelligent mind who manufactured the watch was the watchmaker; and that man might just as well call the watch the watchmaker as to call nature the universe maker.
            Professor Laurant of Ghent, in the concluding volume of the “Etudes Sur L’Histoire de L’Humanite,” says:
            “What is nature anyway—whence has it this power, this foresight, this intelligence, which are so conspicuous in the course of our destinies? If nature is matter, and nothing but matter, that too is no answer.  Who will believe that matter acts with wisdom—with intelligence?  Where there is intelligent action there must be an intelligent being; therefore nature leads us to God.  Finally, there are those who substitute for nature general laws.  But do not laws suppose a legislator?  And who can this legislator be, if not God?”
            Robert Flint expresses his idea by the following illustration:
            “Throw letters together without thought through all eternity, and you will never make the express thought.  All the letters in the Iliad might have been tossed and jumbled together from morning to night by the hands of the whole human race, from the beginning of the world until now, and the first line of the Iliad would have been still un-composed, had not the genius of Homer been inspired to sing the wrath of Achilles and the war around Troy.  But what is the Iliad to the hymn of creation, and the fame of providence?  Were these glorious works composed by the mere jumbling together of atoms, which were not even prepared beforehand to form things, as letters are to form words, and which had to shake themselves into order without the help of any hand?  Such would be nonsense.”
            Some immature students argue that science explains all through the application of the law of cause and effect and therefore the ideas of God should be relegated to the rubbish heap.  Such reasoning is unsound for the existence of God is entirely out of the domain of natural science. Natural science deals with secondary causes and effects and in nowise challenges the existence of a First Great Cause.  To illustrate:
            An electric lamp shows a light, which light is produced by the passage of electricity through the little thread of carbon, the latter offering a resistance to the electricity—resistance causing the energy of the electricity to be transformed into heat and light.  The electricity is produced from the dynamo, the power of which is imparted by a steam engine.  The steam engine takes up motion from the energy in the coal, which energy is released by combustion.  The coal obtains its chemical energy from the sun, which imparted it to the trees from which the coal originated, or else, perhaps, from the energy inherent in its atoms.  The sun or atoms obtained their energy from the universal energy.  So you see the whole process is a chain of transformations, which transformations or secondary causes and effects are the domain of natural science.  Does it not follow that just as the phenomenon of the electric lamp denotes a supervising intelligence, the electrical engineer, directing the law of cause and effect in the contrivances of men so that--

“In Nature’s most minute design,
The signature and stamp of power divine:
Contrivance intricate, expressed with ease,
Where unassisted sight no beauty sees,
The shapely limb and lubricated joint
Within the small dimensions of a point:
Muscle and nerve miraculously spun,
His might work, who speaks and it is done.
The Invisible, in things scarce seen revealed,
To whom an atom is an ample field.”

            The moral law which reveals itself to conscience is certainly a witness for God. 
            Robert Flint, in his book entitled “Theism,” whose writing I am deeply indebted to, declares:
            “There is probably no living practical belief in God which does not begin with the conscience.  It is not reasoning on a first cause, nor even admiration of the wisdom displayed in the universe, which makes the thought of God habitually and efficaciously present to the mind.  It is not any kind of thinking nor any kind of feeling excited by the physical universe or by the contemplation of God’s presence, and of His relationship to us.  It is only in and through an awakened and active conscience that we realize our nearness to God—His interest in us, and our interest in Him.  Without a moral nature of our own, we could not recognize the moral character and moral government manifested by Him.  We might tremble before His power, or we might admire his skill, but His righteousness would be hidden from us, His moral laws would be meaningless to us, and their sanctions would be merely a series of physical advantages or physical disasters.  But a God without righteousness is no true God, and the worship which has no moral element in it is no true worship.  As, then, it is only through the glass of conscience that the righteousness of God can be discerned, and as that attribute alone can call forth, in addition to the fear, wonder, and admiration evoked by power and intelligence, the love, the sense of spiritual weakness and want, and the adoring reverence, which are indispensable in true worship—such worship as God ought to receive and man out to render—the significance of the moral principle in the theistic argumentation is vast indeed.”
            Without further elaboration, the existence of conscience in every human being obviously infers the existence of a supreme moral governor who will reward or punish us according to our works—otherwise why conscience—if annihilation is our lot. Were there no God, there ought to be no fear of God awakened even by crime; but atheism itself cannot protect a criminal when alive to his guilt from being haunted and appalled by fears of a judgment and a justice more terrible than those of man.
            The heart-knowledge of the existence of Deity to each individual who has it, is most convincing.  I know there is God because I know Him.  I experience in prayer, mediation and sorrow a conviction which comes from more tangible evidences.  The objector is open to say, “You assert you have this feeling.  I am willing to admit your sincerity, but you may be the victim of an illusion.  All I can say is that I have no such feeling myself.”  It might be adequate to reply that my convictions are corroborated by thousands of thinking students who have felt similar convictions, many of whom have been willing to seal their convictions with their life’s blood.
            Ralph Waldo Emerson beautifully illustrates this heart knowledge of God in the last verse of his poem “Goodbye, Proud World.”

“Oh when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I mock at the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools, and the learned clan;
For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?”

            The supreme efforts of reason, science and philosophy have proved inadequate to supply the all-convincing evidence of God’s existence.  The heart-touching lamentation of the brilliant agnostic, Robert G. Ingersoll, uttered at the grave of his brother, is indicative of this fact.  In this now famous oration, Ingersoll states:
           
            “Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities.  We strive in vain to look beyond the heights.  We cry aloud and the only answer is the wail of our echoing cry.  From the voiceless lips of the un-replying dead there comes no word.”
            The doleful conclusions of Dean Mansel are interesting in further pointing out the inadequacy of human reasoning to satisfy the heart yearnings for immortality.  After a lifetime of study, Mansel writes:
            “The conception of the Absolute and Infinite, from whatever side we view it, appears encompassed with contradictions.  There is a contradiction in supposing such an object to exist, whether alone or in conjunction with others; and there is a contradiction in supposing it not to exist.  There is a contradiction in conceiving it as one; and there is a contradiction in conceiving it as many.  There is a contradiction in conceiving it as personal; and there is a contradiction in conceiving it as impersonal.  It cannot without contradiction, be represented as active; nor, without equal contradiction, be represented as inactive.  It cannot be conceived as the sum of all existence; nor can it be conceived as a part only of that sum.”
            Natural religion needs revealed religion to complete it.  This revelation is focused in the divine human figure of Jesus Christ, foretold and expected in the Old Testament, present to teach and work in the New, and even in modern times appeared as a glorious immortal God with His Father to the Prophet Joseph Smith. 
            The truth that God exists and is really a Father, with all a Father’s love toward the children of men, is my earnest and sober testimony.

  
(The foregoing is an address delivered by R. Verne McCullough over Radio Station KSL in 1928)
(Typed by Marie Arnold 5-28-2014)


Monday, December 17, 2012

James and Ellen Shellington

I was THRILLED to find this photo of my 3rd Great Grandfather and Grandmother.

James and Ellen Shellington.


James was born in Ireland in 1772.
Ellen Anderson Shellington was born in Ireland in 1770.

Their oldest daughter Ann married James Henderson.
Their youngest son Alexander immigrated to Utah.
He married Almira Heath Silcock.  They are the parents of Nicholas Thomas (NT) Henderson.
NT and Alice are the parents of Jay Harold Henderson, my grandfather.

I am so grateful for the person who posted this on their family tree to share with us!

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Bandits in the Desert!


Last week's post Travelling with Toddlers brought in a new story.

LuAnn Richardson and Gerry Ebert let us know what other troubles Irene McCullough spoke of travelling across the Utah, Nevada and California deserts in the 1920s.

BANDITS.

Yes, there were really bandits that roamed the highways in those days.

People would travel in caravans for protection...especially when camping out on the side of the road at night.

I guess the wild west lasted a little longer than the horses and wagons.

Here is another picture of those cute toddlers.

From left to right: Irene, Stan, Pauline, and Verne McCullough.


Thursday, September 20, 2012

Travelling with toddlers




A picture may say a 1000 words...but let's add just a few to expand the story...

Verne and Irene McCullough's early travelling with two toddlers in the 1920s.

Bring your own food.  There is no fast food.

Air Conditioning?--Roll down the...wait...there are no windows!

Once they stopped in Las Vegas...at that time it was ONLY a gas station.  

Two children in diapers.  No disposables back then. Irene would wash the diapers in water they brought with them and hang them to dry on various parts of the car!

Bring a tent. Each night they would CAMP next the the car.

How do you entertain two toddlers on a trip back then? 
Wish I could ask them.

No more complaints about travelling from me.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Yale Avenue Home


A long time ago Leslie McCullough Cates sent me this wonderful file to share. I am finally sharing it. Sorry for the long wait.

This document includes many pictures and stories about the home on Yale Crest where Verne and Irene McCullough lived. Leslie's dad, R.V., was one of their sons. Verne & Irene's children who lived here included: Pauline, Stan, Beth, Gerry, Joan, & R.V.

Here is the document she created: Yale Avenue Home

Enjoy!!!

Thank you Leslie!!!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Veteran's Day


Here are the two veteran's from the family of which I am aware:

Jay Harold Henderson...served in World War II. He is my grandfather.

He and my grandmother were married as I understand when he was home on leave...if anyone knows the whole story...I would love to know it!

I only have this journal entry from my grandmother:

"As World War II was on at this time, Jay was called into the service. Our date was quite special, but I have to admit that marriage had not really entered my head. We had only gone together three months even though it was very often.

Yet, I definitely recall the thing that made this evening very special!!! I said goodbye to Jay and closed the door and started to walk up the stairs to my room. A voice said to me, as clear as could be, 'That is the boy you will marry!' Though I realize now that this message came from the Lord, at the time, I was spiritually immature and I wondered at this coming so strongly into my mind. But a seed was planted in my mind for sure.

All that next 9 months we wrote steadily and he sent me lovely gifts for Christmas. He was returning for a leave at the end of May and I resolved that I would really 'work on him' because 'that was the boy I wanted to marry.' He called me from the airport when he arrived in Salt Lake and I drove out to pick him up. All the way, I thought that these next two weeks I must really be at my best so that he might ask me to marry him.

Imagine my surprise when on the way in to town from the airport he asked me to marry him! The next two weeks were really hectic. I was not only planning for a big wedding, but I was in the process of graduating from the University of Utah....How grateful I am that we were able to marry in the temple--the most peaceful, quiet and beautiful time of the two weeks."

So I guess my grandmother was a "war bride". They were married 12 June 1945. I would love to know how long he was in the service. I do know he was in Okinawa for a while.





















Guy Messiah Keysor...served in the Mexican American War with the Mormon Battalion...click on his name to learn more.












If you know of more veterans in our family let me know!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Jens Peter and Ane Pederson Jensen

Here is some information & pictures of my 2nd great grandparents Jens & Ane Jensen.

They are the parents of Alice "Allie" Matilda Jensen who married Nicholas Thomas Henderson.
Allie & Nicholas Henderson are the parents of Jay Harold Henderson.

I am so excited to have found a picture of both of them! If anyone has more pictures of them, please share! E-mail me at funseekerfamilyhistory@gmail.com.

Jens Peter Jensen




















Ane Pederson Jensen (possibly holding Alice "Allie" Matilda Jensen)




















The following is from the Latter-Day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia Volume 1, Andrew Jensen, 1901, page 570-1

"Jens Peter Jensen:

Bishop of Crescent Ward (Jordan Stake), Salt Lake county, Utah, is the son of Soren Jensen and Nielsine Christine Neucuibing, and was born June 16, 1859, in Tommberby parish, Thisted amt, Denmark. In 1878 he was baptized into the Church by Elder Jens Christensen. He was ordained an Elder and sent out to labor as a local missionary. In June, 1879, he emigrated to Utah, and located in Draper , Salt Lake county. He was called on a mission to Scandinavia in 1894 and labored ten months in Denmark, when he was released on account of poor health. When the Crescent Ward was organized in 1895, he was chosen to preside as Bishop, and he is still laboring in the capacity."