It can get dry and repetitive, but that's par for the course of a reference book. I realized about half way through it that it wasn't intended to be read the way I read it: cover to cover. The best way to read this book is by section. Use the table of contents to discover what you'd like to learn more about, and read a chapter at a time.
p. 3
Quoting a pamphlet entitled "The Strength of the Mormon Position," by Elder Orson F. Whitney
"One day he said to me: You Mormons are all ignoramuses. You don't even know the strength of your own positionn....The issue is between Catholicism and Mormonism. If we are right, you are wrong; if you are right, we are wrong; and that's all there is to it. The Protestants haven't a leg to stand on. For, if we are wrong, they are wrong with us, since they were a part of us and went out from us. If we are right, they are apostates whom we cut off long ago."
p. 115
After citing John 16:7, 12-14
"[The Savior], his Father, and the Holy Ghost are three distinct personages, and that their oneness referred to in the scriptures is only oneness of purpose and desire, else why should Jesus pray unto his Father and promise that the Father would send another Comforter? There cannont be another unless there is already one. Jesus is the one Comforter, and surely he would not pray unto himself, asking that he himself send himself as 'another Comforter.'"p. 305
"There are many faithful people who have done all they consistently could to prove themselves worthy of the choicest blessings of the Lord but how have been deprived the privilege of having children through no fault of their own. On the other hand, there are many who have borne children whose lives have been such that they will be entirely unworthy of them in the eternal worlds. The Lord has provided a millenium, during which time, no doubt, necessary adjustments will be made."
That is probably my most favorite passage from this entire book.
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I'm also continuing to read "Our New Nation." Which is a 7th grade history book from 1948.
Allow me to quote from the preface, or "Purpose and Plan of this Book," on page 5.
"The history contains frequent quotations from our leaders. Some of these hae been simplified to meet vocabulary requirements. The authors have also occasionally used conversations that might have taken place in order to make America's past more understandable and interesting to the pupil."
I managed to find this little gem on page 13, which I feel says a lot about history and about life. It's sentences like this that make me like reading books I wouldn't normally read. Call it "the brown sugar in the oatmeal," if you will. It's placed after George Washington has denied petitions to make him king, and the telling of people's reactions to that.
"People were beginning to understand that it might be as hard to keep freedom as it had been to win it."
Here's something page 15 of the book attributes to Benjamin Franklin during the Federal Convention (when the Founding Fathers were drawing up the Constitution). Considering the confession in the preface, I'm not sure how accurate that attribution is.
"The longer I live...the more I hae come to respect other men's opinions. For I have noticed that when the carpenter wishes to make a perfect joint, he has to plane a little from each plank. In that way he is able to bring them together in a tight and perfect joint. Let us do the same thing. Let us each be willing to give up some of the things we want for the good of all. For, gentlemen, what we need in these meetings is light, not heat."
p. 82. I have intentionally left some of the words as blanks to prove how history can repeat itself.
"[General _______] believed that the _____(a)____ had been helping the ___(b)____. So he captured a ____(a)___ fort and drove out the ___(a)____ soldiers. He pulled down the ___(a)____ flag and raised the American flag instead.
"When news of this reached __(a)___, the king and his officers in the ___(a)____ government were very angry. They demanded that General _______ be punished for going into ___(a)____ territory. Our country hummed with excitement. The papers were filled with talk of war.
"But our government insisted that the invasion of _______ had been necessary. It refused to punish General _______ or dismiss him from the army."
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This afternoon, I plan on watching "Sense and Sensibility" so that it'll be easier for me to plow through the book. I'll need to really zoom through one of the two in order to get a "purse book," since neither of the books I'm reading will physically fit into my purse. Oh, well, I guess that means I'll have to write on my breaks at work, huh?
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