In last month’s First Presidency message, President Monson referred to pre-colonial explorers who sought after a lost city of gold, in hopes they’d come upon the Fountain of Youth and thus open the doors to eternal life.

Still today, people seek out and spend up for age-defying creams, vitamin combinations, skin paralyzing treatments and fishy supplements that may or may not do anything substantial to preserve the form of one’s face and figure.

May I echo President Monson’s suggestion that the real recipe for prolonging youth is drinking deeply from and obeying that which flows from the Fountain of Truth. By the grace of Jesus Christ, in the resurrection what we have sent out in the way of obeying God’s commands shall commensurately return unto us again in the form of His eternal blessings, including glorified bodies. You might say that there is a positive, causal relationship between one’s obedience to God and the glory of his or her resurrected frame.

In parting, my friends, enjoy these words from one of my favorite hymns.1

Oh say, what is truth? ‘Tis the fairest gem
That the riches of worlds can produce,
And priceless the value of truth will be when
The proud monarch’s costliest diadem
Is counted but dross and refuse.

Yes, say, what is truth? ‘Tis the brightest prize
To which mortals or Gods can aspire;
Go search in the depths where it glittering lies
Or ascend in pursuit to the loftiest skies.
‘Tis an aim for the noblest desire.

The sceptre may fall from the despot’s grasp
When with winds of stern justice he copes,
But the pillar of truth will endure to the last,
And its firm-rooted bulwarks outstand the rude blast,
And the wreck of the fell tyrant’s hopes.

Then say, what is truth? ‘Tis the last and the first,
For the limits of time it steps o’er.
Though the heavens depart and the earth’s fountains burst,
Truth, the sum of existence, will weather the worst,
Eternal, unchanged, evermore.

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Notes

  1. John Jacques, “Oh Say, What Is Truth?” Emphasis added. Hymns, no. 272.