Miracles
By Matthew Cowley
Address at
I feel very humble this morning, and sometimes when I'm introduced, I get the idea that others feel that I'm untouchable, but I want you to know that I'm neither untouchable nor unteachable. And since I've been in this position in the Church, I have learned some very fine things from some of the members of the Church, generally in anonymous letters. I don't know why they don't sign those letters because almost invariably what they say is true, especially when I look it up in the books.
When I was invited to come here, President Wilkinson suggested that I might talk a little bit about miracles. Well, it will be a miracle if I do. I had a particular assignment or instruction from President George Albert Smith when I was called to this position. He called me into his office one day and took hold of my hand, and while he was holding my hand and looking at me he said, "I want to say something to you Brother Cowley."
I said, "Well, I'm willing to listen."
"This is just a particular suggestion to you, not to all the brethren but to you," He said, "Never write a sermon. Never write down what you are going to say."
I said, "What on earth will I do?"
He said, "You tell the people what the Lord wants you to tell them while you are standing on your feet."
I said, "That certainly is putting some responsibility on the Lord."
But I've tried to live up to that instruction. And I've had some great experiences. There have been times when the Lord has forsaken me. But when he hasn't, I've had some miraculous -- well, I shouldn't say miraculous -- it is the normal experience of the priesthood, of having the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I can bear witness to you, my fellow students, here this morning that God can work through his priesthood and that he does work through it. I know that without any question of doubt. I've had too many experiences. I'm an expert witness about these things.
A few weeks ago I was called to the
And I said, "Yes."
He said, "I want to thank you for that prayer." He added, "I was unconscious then wasn't I?"
I replied, "You certainly were."
He said, "That's the reason I don't recognize you." Then he asked, "Come in my room; I want to talk to you." He was an unusual boy. Well, we went in the room. He still had a tube in his throat. I said, "How long are you going to have that tube there?"
He said, "Oh, two weeks, two more weeks, and then I'm all well. How about another blessing?"
So I said, "Certainly." I blessed him again. I was in a hurry. I wanted to get out to my conference. But he stopped me and asked, "Hey, how about my partner in the next bed?" There was a young fellow about sixteen or seventeen.
I said, "What do you mean?"
He said, "Don't go without blessing him. He's my partner."
I said, "Sure." Then I asked the boy, "Would you like a blessing?"
He said, "Yes, sir. I'm a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood in my ward." I blessed him, and then my little friend went and brought another fellow in. Here was another partner. And I blessed him.
Now, except ye believe as a child, you can't receive these blessings. We have to have the faith of a child in order to believe in these things, especially when you reach college age, and your minds are so full of skepticism and doubt. I guess there are some things you should doubt. But you can become as little children in these things. Miracles are commonplace, brothers and sisters.
In 1851 or 52, Parley P. Pratt wrote a book called The Key to Theology. In that book he said the day would come (these were not his exact words), when man would not be satisfied with going along the surface of the earth at the rate of sixty, seventy, eighty or ninety miles an hour, but we would use the air and go at the rate of a thousand miles an hour. Now in 1852 when he wrote that the was "crazy," wasn't he? He was "mad" -- but he was a prophet. Today it is commonplace. Since the first time I flew from
I was on an island down in French Oceania one Sunday afternoon. I started fooling with the radio; I don't know whether you're supposed to play radios on Sunday afternoon or not, but I started turning the dials, and all of a sudden I heard the voice of Richard L. Evans from the Tabernacle in
I was over in
I got on a plane one day in
The missionaries down in
So he'd tune in down there and get this young Samoan with his ham radio. and I'd sit there in that Chinese home and talk to these missionaries down in
He said, "Yes, that's right, but they won't understand it."
I said, "Well, why not?"
He said, "Well, when your words go out of this transmitter we jumble them up; there is no meaning to them. But when they go into the receiver on the mainland they are all straightened out again, and your wife will understand them just as you spoke them."
My, I'm glad of that. I'll tell you why. I get my prayers so jumbled up sometimes that I'm glad there's a receiving set over on the other side that will straighten out the things I'm trying to say. And I believe that, I'm just simple enough to believe that. I'm simple enough to believe that if man can talk to man across the ocean and across the world with these instruments, that man can talk to God, that God has as much power as man, as much control over the elements. And so, brothers and sisters of the Church, God has his priesthood here upon the earth, his power, and with that power we can be used by God for the accomplishment of his purpose. Don't ever forget that. I've had these experiences. I know.
I've learned a lot from these islanders that I see scattered around here. I see Albert Whaanga from
These Natives live close to God. They have some kind of power. I guess it's just because they accept miracles as a matter of course. They never doubt anything. They used to scare me. Someone would come up and say, "Brother Cowley, I've had a dream about you."
I'd say, "Don't tell me. I don't want to hear about it."
"Oh, it was a good one."
"All right. Tell me."
And they'd tell me something. Now I remember when President Rufus K. Hardy of the First Council of the Seventy passed away. I was walking along the street of one of the cities in
She said to me, "President Hardy is dead."
I said, "Is that so? Have you received a wire?"
She said, "No. I received a message, but I haven't received any wire." She repeated, "He's dead. I know."
Well, I always believed them when they told me those things. When I got back to headquarters, I wasn't there long when here came a cablegram which said that President Hardy had passed away the night before. But she knew that without any cablegram. She told me about it.
I got out of my car once in the city. I got out to do some window-shopping to get a little rest from driving. I walked around, and finally I went around a corner, and there stood a native woman and her daughter. The mother said to the daughter, "What did I tell you?"
I said, "What's going on here?"
The daughter said, "Mother said if we'd stand here for fifteen minutes you'd come around the corner." Now she didn't have any radio set with her, just one in her heart where she received the impression.
After President Hardy died, we had a memorial service for him. I'll never forget the native who was up speaking, saying What a calamity it was to the mission to lose this great
And so, remember we have great opportunities. Great opportunities to bless. Sometimes I wonder if we do enough in our administration of the sick. You know when the Apostles tried to cast out an evil spirit, they couldn't do it or they didn't do it. The Master came along, and he immediately cast out the dumb spirit. Then the Apostles said, "Why could not we cast him out?" And what did Christ say? "This kind goeth not out but by prayer and by fasting." (Matt. 17:21)
Sometimes we rush in, administer to a person, rush out, and say, "Well, he won't make it. I know he won't." Of course, we have to, in case of an emergency, go immediately. Sometimes I wonder, if we have a little time, if we shouldn't do a little fasting. "This kind cometh not out save by prayer and by fasting."
A little over a year ago a couple came into my office carrying a little boy. The father said to me, "My wife and I have been fasting for two days, and we've brought our little boy up for a blessing. You are the one we've been sent to."
I said, "What's the matter with him?"
They said he was born blind, deaf, and dumb, had not co-ordination of his muscles, couldn't even crawl at the age of five years. I said to myself, this is it. I had implicit faith in the fasting and the prayers of those parents. I blessed that child, and a few weeks later I received a letter: "Brother Cowley, we wish you could see our little boy now. He's crawling. When we throw a ball across the floor, he races after it on his hands and knees. He can see. When we clap our hands over his head, he jumps. He can hear." Medical science had laid the burden down. God had taken over. The little boy was rapidly recovering or really getting what he'd never had.
I went into a hospital one day in
I said, "Yes." So we knelt down. Everybody around there knelt down. And after the prayer we blessed her. The last time I was in
Well, now, this is just psychological effect, isn't it? There nothing to this priesthood business. it's only psychological effect. But where was the psychological effect on that little boy in the
I was called to a home in a little village in
He said, "Administer to him"
And the young natives said, "Why, you shouldn't do that; he's dead."
"You do it!"
This same old man that I had with me when his niece was so ill was there. The younger native got down on his knees, and he anointed the dead man. Then this great old sage got down and blessed him and commanded him to rise. You should have seen the Relief Society sisters scatter. And he sat up, and he said, "Send for the elders; I don't feel very well." Now, of course, all of that was just psychological effect on that dead man. Wonderful, isn't it--this psychological effect business? Well, we told him he had just been administered to, and he said: "Oh, that was it." He said, "I was dead. I could feel life coming back into me just like a blanket unrolling." Now, he outlived the brother that came in and told us to administer to him.
I've told the story about the little baby nine months old who was born blind. The father came up with him one Sunday and said, "Brother Cowley, our baby hasn't been blessed yet; we'd like you to bless him."
I said, "Why have you waited so long?"
"Oh, we just didn't get around to it."
Now, that's the native way; I like that. Just don't get around to doing thing! Why not live and enjoy it? I said, "All right, what's the name?" So he told me the name and I was just going to start when he said, "By the way, give him his vision when you give him a name. He was born blind." Well, it shocked me, but then I said to myself, why not? Christ told his disciples when he left them they could work miracles. And I had faith in that father's faith. After I gave that child its name, I finally got around to giving it its vision. That boy's about twelve years old now. The last time I was back there I was afraid to inquire about him. I was sure he had gone blind again. That's the way my faith works sometimes. So I asked the branch president about him. And he said, "Brother Cowley, the worst thing you ever did was to bless that child to receive his vision. He's the meanest kid in the neighborhood, always getting into mischief." Boy, I was thrilled about that kid getting into mischief!
God does have control of all of these elements. You and I can reach out, and if it's his will, we can bring those elements under our control for his purposes. I know that God lives. I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. And if there ever was a miracle in the history of mankind that miracle is this Church which has grown to its present greatness in the earth. And your institution here stems from the prayer of a boy who was persecuted, who was driven from pillar to post, whose life was taken, who has been branded as the greatest fraud that ever lived on the American continent. This Church from that kind of fraud is the greatest miracle of modern history. And it's a miracle of God our Father. May you all have an inward witness that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that God used him to bring about his purposes in this Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. May we always be loyal devoted, and simple in our faith, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.