An interesting illustration of this difference in religious attitude was shown recently in connection with the funeral of a promising young man who had been taken in death just as he had fairly launched upon his life’s work.  In a discussion that followed the service, one good brother found consolation in the thought that the Lord needed just such a young man to help carry on a more important work among the spirits already called home.  His companion in the discussion found an explanation to his satisfaction in the thought that it was providential that the young man could be taken when he was, that he thereby might be spared the probable catastrophies that might have visited him had he lived.  Each man found complete solace in his own philosophy, though neither could accept the reasoning of the other.

An interesting case of difference of view came to the attention of the teacher-training class at Provo when someone asked how the lesson on Jonah could be presented so that it would appeal to adolescent boys and girls.  The query was joined in by several others for whom Jonah had been a stumbling block, when Brother Sainsbury, of Vernal, startled the class by saying Jonah was his favorite story.  “I would rather teach that story than any other one in the Bible,” he declared, and illustrated his method so clearly that the account of Jonah took on an entirely new aspect.

Many men and women in the world are shocked at the thought that God is a personality.  To them the idea that God is simply a “man made perfect,” a being similar to us, but exalted to deity, is akin to blasphemy.  And then to add the idea of a heavenly mother is beyond comprehension.  To Latter-day Saints, on the other hand, these thoughts are the very glory of God.  To them a man made perfect is the noblest conception possible.  It makes of Him a reality.  And the thought of Mother—­Heaven without a Mother would be like home without one.

And so with all the principles and conceptions of religion, men’s reactions to them are as varied as they are to all the other facts of life.  Everywhere the opinions, the capacities, the attainments of men vary.  The law of individual differences is one of the most universal in our experience.

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QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS—­CHAPTER IX

1.  Just what is the meaning of the term Individual Differences?

2.  Illustrate such differences in families with which you are familiar.

3.  Apply the test to your ward choir.

4.  Name and characterize twenty men whom you know.  How do they differ?

5.  Have a report brought in from your public school on the results of given tests in arithmetic, spelling, etc.

6.  Have the members of your class write their opinions relative to some point of doctrine concerning which there may be some uncertainty.