No sooner has one difficulty been settled than another has broken out. People hope for better times, but they do not come. Today no one can look at the condition of the nation with impartial eyes without being saddened at the prospects before it.

Considerable anxiety is now beginning to be felt concerning the presidential election. Next November this takes place. Whom will the people choose? Much depends on their choice.

If, having just read the morning newspaper or watched the latest news broadcast, you have been nodding your head in agreement, you should know that the words in those first two short paragraphs are those of Apostle George Q. Cannon. He was writing an editorial for the Juvenile Instructor of 1 March 1876.

Elder Cannon wasn't making anything up. There was ample reason for despair. Some effects of the depression of 1873 were still felt. Political graft and corruption seemed rampant not only in Washington, D.C., but also in some of the major cities, where power was wielded by bosses and political "rings." George Q. could not help but detect a similarity to the Gadianton robbers of the Book of Mormon.

In April, the people of Salt Lake City, going about their peaceful routines, were suddenly shaken by a huge explosion. Forty tons of powder on Arsenal Hill (now known as Capitol Hill) had been accidentally ignited, and the reverberations were heard and felt for miles around. Although not of the magnitude of the World Trade Center destruction that would take place in 2001, the great explosion of 1876 took four lives, destroyed much property, and, I think we can safely say, got people's attention. Some thought the end of the world had arrived.

But how bad were things in 1876? Was anything good going on? For one thing, the country had survived a bitter, costly civil war. Slavery had been abolished, certainly not a small thing. At the great centennial exposition in Philadelphia, hordes of people heard patriotic band music and admired many impressive technological achievements. The four new "wonders of the world" were on display — the electric light, the telephone, the phonograph, and the microphone. While strolling the grounds, visitors could sip a new beverage, a beer made from roots, dispensed at the booth of Charles Hires.

St. George in the 1800s

Let's soar in our ever-reliable time machine all the way to Utah and, rather than stopping in the metropolis of Salt Lake City, go all the way to St. George. There Charles Walker, a faithful Latter-day Saint, was working on his family history. "My soul delights in the noble work," he wrote. There is something good, something calm and reassuring, something of great lasting importance. But it didn't make the news.

President Brigham Young and his party arrived in May. Among the messages expressed were some that seem perfectly relevant to the present. Here is part of Charley Walker's summary of a meeting on 12 May:

I don't think credit cards were used in 1876, but differentiating between wants and needs continues to be a challenge for many.

In October, President Young and other general authorities again came to St. George. When George Q. Cannon addressed the people, he "spoke on the fulfillment of modern and ancient prophecy [and] the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon. Said that no honest person could read that Book with a prayerful heart without partaking of the spirit of it and having a testimony of its truth."

Among Latter-day Saints, the great excitement of the year was the completion of the St. George Temple. Its official dedication date is listed as 6 April 1877, but thanks to strenuous effort during 1876, the lower part of the building was dedicated on New Year's Day. Gleaming white against the red rock background, the temple was a glorious structure, to be followed by the completion of temples in Logan (1884), Manti (1888), and Salt Lake City (1893). Compared to earlier times, it was a busy generation of temple building.

As part of the important administrative reorganization accomplished during the last year of Brigham Young's life, the number of stakes was doubled from ten to twenty. Total church membership, less than 35,000 in 1847, now, in 1876, reached a total easily remembered: 111,111. (That unusual number ought to be good for at least one point in a Trivial Pursuit game.) Church membership would continue to move steadily upward.

The Work Goes Forward

Fast forward to the present. Standing near the beginning of the twenty-first century, we cannot be sanguine about the state of the world. In Western Europe secularism — indifference amounting to rejection of God — is rampant. Many adults marry late, or not at all. If they have children, it is usually only one. The birthrate is substantially below the replacement level.

Africa, already on its knees because of famine and the devastation of war, is afflicted by the AIDS virus to such an extent that many children and youth see little hope for the future.

Country after country faces economic calamity. Without employment, people lose hope. The blame game leads to anti-Semitic outbursts, escapism through drugs, and soaring crime. Terrorism strikes in one country after another. The family is collapsing in much of the world. But why go on? You can readily compile your own list of woes.

The pathologies of modernity can be documented and, in many instances, quantified. They are real, and those who suffer from them, even indirectly, need no reminder that the millennium is not yet here. To the extent that selfishness and abandonment of traditional morality place hedonism at the center of life, we are not far from Sodom and Gomorrah.

And yet, not to be stopped in its tracks by unhallowed hands, the marvelous work moves forward. Even while deploring the sin and horror of our generation, President Gordon B. Hinckley always remembers the positive. In the April 2004 annual conference, he showed awareness of both sides of the ledger.

"Perilous times? Yes. These are perilous times," he said. "But the human race has lived in peril from the time before the earth was created. Somehow, through all of the darkness, there has been a faint but beautiful light. And now with added luster it shines upon the world. It carries with it God's plan of happiness for his children."

Yes, George Q. Cannon, things were bad in 1876. But, as you well knew, all was not lost. The latter-day work continued to move forward. And so it does in the twenty-first century.