53. Honesty

A talk given by six-year-old Rachael Cleverly on Sunday, February 14, 1982, in the Primary of the Bountiful Twentieth Ward, Bountiful Utah South Stake. The talk was printed in the March 1982 issue of the Family Journal.

Today I’m going to talk about honesty. First of all, honesty means not telling lies.

There are at least three ways why we should be honest. First, so you won’t get in trouble. Second, so you’ll feel good inside. Third, so Heavenly Father won’t be sad.

I’m going to tell you a story about Daniel. Once there was a man named Daniel, and he lived in the city near a king. The king loved him very much, and he made Daniel sort of like a prince.
There were some people in the city that didn’t even like him, and they tried to get rid of him. Now Daniel had a rule for himself that he would pray three times a day. And the people who didn’t like him forced the king into making a rule that said you couldn’t pray to your own God but only to the king. And once they caught Daniel praying to his own God, so they brought him to the king, and the king said, “Is it true that you have been praying to your own God?”

Daniel could have told a lie just to save himself, but he told the truth, and he said, “Yes, I have been praying to my own God.”

Now the king hated to do it, but he had to obey the laws, so he put Daniel in the lions’ den. And all night the lions kept their mouths shut. In the morning the king was so surprised when he saw Daniel was still alive. After they got Daniel out, they put the other people in, and that night the lions did not keep their mouths shut.

And I hope we can all be honest like Daniel was. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.