Our National Sins

"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own...It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness."

Abraham Lincoln

to see an interesting post about Abraham go here:
http://jhistorian.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/abraham-lincoln/

Personal Interview with Savior

In 1965 David O. McKay in a talk to church employees told the brethren that one day they would each have a personal priesthood interview with the Savior himself. He told the order of in which he will ask you to account for you earthly responsibilities.

1. He will want an accountability report about your relationship with your wife.
2. He will want an accountability report about each of your children.
3. He will want to know what you have done with the talents you were given.
4. He will want a summary of your activity in your Church assignments.
5. He will have no interest in how you earned your living, but he will ask whether you were honest in all your dealings.
6. He will ask for an accountability of what you have done to enhance your community, state, country, and the world.

Being Good.

“It is not enough to be good. You must be good for something. You must be a good to the world. The world must be a better place for your presence. And the good that is in you must be spread to others. In this world so filled with problems, so constantly threatened by dark and evil challenges, you can and must rise above mediocrity, above indifference. You can become involved and speak with a strong voice for that which is right.”

-President Gordon B. Hinckley

Secquences of Democracy

In 1787 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the university of Edinburgh, noticed a continuing pattern in the advance and decline of the worlds democracies.

He stated then that a democracy would continue to exist until such time that the voters discover that they can literally vote themselves gifts from teh public treasury. From the moment that revelation is made, the majority proceeds to vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury. The final result is that every democracy finally collapses due to loose fiscal policy. That collapse is always followed by dictatorship.

Tyler charted the ages of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history... and average existence of about 200 years. every single time, these nations progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency; from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence; and finally from dependence back into bondage.

From the book "Island of Saints" by Andy Andrew. You can find the book here on Amazon. It's not about politics, but WWII and forgiveness - Historical Inspirational Fiction.
http://www.amazon.com/Island-Saints-Story-Principle-Spirit/dp/0785261400/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_6

Where do you think America is at in the sequence?