Each of us has duties associated with the sacred
priesthood which we bear.
Whether we bear the Aaronic or the Melchizedek Priesthood,
much is expected of each of us.
Fifty-one years ago I heard William J. Critchlow Jr., then
president of the South Ogden Stake who would later become
an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve, speak to the
brethren of the general priesthood session of
conference and retell a story concerning
trust, honor, and duty.
May I share the story with you.
Its simple lesson applies to us today, as it did then.
"[Young]
Rupert stood by the side of the road watching an unusual
number of people hurry past.
At length he recognized a friend.
'Where are all of you going in such a hurry?' he asked.
The friend paused.
'Haven't you heard?' he said.
'I've heard nothing,' Rupert answered.
'Well,' continued [the]
friend, 'the King has lost his royal emerald.
Yesterday he attended a wedding of the nobility and
wore the emerald on the slender golden
chain around his neck.
In some way the emerald became loosened from the chain.
Everyone is searching, for the King has offered a reward ...
to the one who finds it.
Come, we must hurry.' 'But I cannot go without asking
Grandmother,' faltered Rupert.
'Then I cannot wait.
I want to find the emerald,' replied his friend.
Rupert hurried back to the cabin at the edge of the woods
to seek his grandmother's permission.
'If I could find it we could leave this hut with its
dampness and buy a piece of land up on the hillside,'
he pleaded with Grandmother.
But his grandmother shook her head.
'What would the sheep do?' she asked.
'Already they are restless in the pen, waiting to be taken
to the pasture, and please do not forget to take them to
water when the sun shines high in the heavens.'
Sorrowfully, Rupert took the sheep to the pasture, and at
noon he led them to the brook in the woods.
There he sat on a large stone by the stream.
'If I only had a chance to look for the King's emerald!'
he thought.
Turning his head to gaze down at the sandy bottom of the
brook, suddenly he stared into the water.
What was it?
It could not be!
He leaped into the water, and his dripping fingers held
something that was green with a slender bit of gold chain
[that had been broken].
'The King's emerald!' he shouted.
'It must have been flung from the chain when the King
[astride his horse galloped across the bridge spanning the
stream and the current carried] it here.' With
shining eyes Rupert ran to his grandmother's hut to tell her
of his great find.
'Bless you, my boy,' she said, 'but you never would have
found it if you had not been doing your duty, herding the
sheep.' And Rupert knew that this was the truth." The
lesson to be learned from this story is found in the familiar
couplet: "Do [your]
duty; that is best; Leave unto [the]
Lord the rest!"