This is Part 3, where Leah Widtsoe concludes her article on the powerful destiny of our Relief Society. Click to read Part 1 and Part 2.

There are two great truths with vast implications that all should understand: 1) all great causes have small beginnings; 2) a chain is no stronger than its weakest link.

What do you believe she means by these implications?

She continues with these words.

If a child is loved and cared for and understood from infancy, and all his problems met with fairness and justice by wise parents, he grows up with faith in his playmates and later in his fellow men, prepared to expect and to give justice and mercy in all his dealings in later life. These are undoubtedly the “men (and women) of good will” of whom the angels sang on the first Christmas morn when they promised peace!

On the other hand, if a busy, distracted, selfish, untrained, wrongly brought up mother, or father, treats the child with unfairness, punishes him unjustly (as the child feels), and fails to give time and patience and love enough to understand him and his problems, even though they think they love him, then this child is very likely to grow to maturity feeling that the world is unjust, that evil is everywhere. He is sure to feel that only he succeeds who looks out for himself, and it does not matter what happens to anyone else so long as he gets what he wants.

Such a child grows to maturity with a burning determination to “get even,” to get revenge for the wrongs he feels were innocently forced upon him. That is but human. Of such children grow the future overlords, dictators, and all their kind who think might is right, and any means justify getting the power to rule others.

War will cease only when men learn from infancy the power of love, justice, and the true worth of all God’s children on earth, with their right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The first and greatest teachers of these noble truths are the mothers of men; they can be ingrained into one’s character in no other way.

When the chain of world peace is forged, it can be no stronger than the men and women who have come from homes such as yours and mine with their determination or lack of it, to be truly “men of good will.”

What constitutes a good mother? Whether she works out of the home, or inside, it is her genuine, and generous love that will bring up a child with righteous ideals.

The Greatest Job on Earth

This is a mighty responsibility to place on the shoulders of the mothers of men. Indeed, it is too big a job to be left to chance. Motherhood is indeed and should be the greatest of all professions, for its results are far-reaching and tremendously important. Yet this profession is practically the only one today which is ignored, as such, by our schools, colleges, and universities. One must be trained for any and every other profession—even for trimming fingernails or curling hair—and especially for the “fine art” (?) of killing one’s fellow men, women, and children!

The tremendous increase in juvenile delinquency and crime is rightly laid, as first cause, to faulty or broken homes, and they are surely the result of ignorant and untrained mothers and fathers—but especially mothers. Yet, what are we doing to make better mothers? Girls should learn the technique of homemaking. To trust to home training or instinct is not enough—in too many cases it is negligible. The condition of the world today proves this to be true.

This, then, may be one of the greatest opportunities for the active endeavor of every mother of Zion: to work for better motherhood in the Society and to demand special intensive training in homemaking and parenthood in all our schools, even in the grades—for many girls do not reach high school or college. This training should be as fundamental as the “Three R’s.” Its neglect can bring greater disaster to the entire human race. Our Relief Society program has included instruction for better motherhood and such training will be continued. Are we doing all we can in the Society, in the communities, as in our homes, to inculcate justice, fairness, and nobility into the lives of our children and their friends? Are we making our convictions known so that our schools and other agencies will provide training for parenthood and homemaking for every boy and girl in the land? If the hundred thousand voices of Relief Society are raised in any cause they are sure to be heard.

The second century of Relief Society will have many tasks for our willing hearts and hands, but surely this is one way of meeting the needs of the hour and extending our usefulness for world betterment.

Where the world has belittled and berated Motherhood, God has commanded that we, His daughters, rise to this honored position. All children of the future depend on us. If Relief Society seriously takes this purpose to heart we will be able to

Purge iniquity

Spread love and mercy across the globe

Bring aid to the poor and needy

And save the souls of mankind

Leah D. Widtsoe, “Relief Society and the Future,” Relief Society Magazine, (33) March 1946, pp. 147-150