When General Moroni rose in the majesty of inspired leadership to erect the title of liberty and energize his compatriots to take a stand for the right, he made a symbolic statement that continues to echo with vibrant power down through the centuries. That statement confirms that universal principles and divinely-rooted covenants have eternal meaning and predominance in the face of worldly relativism and materialistically defined tyranny. There is a time and a place where God-fearing men and women have to draw a line and stand up for truth. That time is every day, and that place is everywhere.
I recall the training I went through as a young college student to qualify for summer work as a licensed tour-bus driver in the Canadian Rockies. We were taken on dangerous switchbacks in order to learn the skills needed for maneuvering a large passenger vehicle safely in the mountains. One day the trainer surprised us with an unexpected question: “Imagine that you are driving a fully-loaded bus on the outside lane of a mountain highway with a steep granite wall rising to your left and a deep precipice dropping to your right. Suddenly you round a curve and find that a car is racing toward you in the middle of the road. What would you do?”
Naturally one’s instinct is to veer out of the way—but that is the wrong answer. Any attempt to reposition the moving bus might take you precipitously close to the edge and place your forty-five passengers in even greater danger—with the possibility of certain death. The answer our trainer was looking for was simply this: You hold to your lane and hit the oncoming car directly. Your enormous weight and size will give you a powerful advantage in competition with the much smaller car—and the chances of maximizing the safety for your passengers will thereby be secured. At the time, this strategy seemed drastic, but it soon sunk in as the only possible solution to such a crisis.
The collision of honor and principle with moral compromise presents a similar scenario. There are many times in every person’s life where a sudden and unexpected confrontation with the oncoming dangers of evil demand a head-on stand for what is right. At such times there can be no compromise. To leave the well-marked pathway and veer to right or left to avoid taking a stand can only exacerbate the crisis and lead to tragic consequences.
When Moroni led his forces in a life-and-death battle against Amalickiah and his power-hungry hordes, he demonstrated how to meet life’s challenges head-on. His cause was the greater cause: “In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children” (Alma 46:12). In facing the challenges of evil, our model is the Lord Himself: “For God doth not walk in crooked paths, neither doth he turn to the right hand nor to the left, neither doth he vary from that which he hath said, therefore his paths are straight, and his course is one eternal round” (D&C 3:2).
Our commission in life is much like that of the bus driver. We journey along the highways of life with the responsibility to guide our families safely to the destination of sanctity and righteousness. There are many dangerous curves to maneuver. There are countless distractions to divert our vision from the course straight ahead. Our duty and our honor demand constant vigilance and the perpetual exercise of correct principles. When we come upon a sudden challenge in the road, we are then prepared to take a stand for the sake of our families, our Church, our peace, our faith. We stay in tune with the Spirit and follow the promptings that come.
As the Savior expressed it in His intercessory prayer: “And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth” (John 17:19). To overcome the perils of temptation and the threat of evil in this world, we need only emulate the example of figures like Moroni. (Richard J. Allen)