One in moral courage is one who is true to him or herself, and also has physical courage. We all have a conscience, and a conscience is the root of moral courage. A truly brave person will always obey his or her conscience to know what is right and to not do things that are cowardice. Any organism that is to survive must develop habits of behavior that are adequate to satisfy its needs. Such habits are rulers of behavior that prescribe how we should act under given conditions in order to achieve a particular experiential result. Now such habits, when thoroughly adopted, are called beliefs. Since to possess beliefs is to know how to satisfy one’s wants, belief is a pleasant state: doubt, or the absence of beliefs, is an unpleasant state, since one is then uncertain how to act and is unable to attain the desired goals. The organism will therefore seek to escape from doubt and to find belief. The process by which the organism goes from doubt to belief is defined as inquiry. Clearly, there are various methods of inquiry, and the most satisfactory method will be that which leads most surely to the establishment of stable belief—that is, to beliefs that will stand in the long run. In our history we find many examples of high courage. In almost all of America’s wars, patriotism has run high and bombastic rhetoric has inspired citizens to arms. The American Revolution Wars was no exception. At the beginning, men from all walks of life and every class fought in defense of American liberty. Within a short time, however, that began to change. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

 As the war lengthened and its costs increased, men who could afford to do so hired substitutes or arranged to go home, whereas men of less wealth and influence increasingly carried the burden of fights. Some of the wealthy men went home because they needed to protect their family fortunes, and also because medial treatment, whether for wounds or diseases such as smallpox, dysentery, and typhus raged through the camps, and women were not allowed to run family businesses at that time. Casualties poured into hospitals, often overcrowding them beyond capacity. “We have at present upwards of one thousand sick crowded into sheds and labouring under the various and cruel disorders of dysenteries, bilious putrid fevers and the effects of a confluent smallpox; to attend to this large number we have four seniors and four mates, exclusive of myself,” reports Dr. Jonathan Potts, the attending physician at Fort George in New York, United States of America. Surgeons, operating without anesthetics and with the crudest of instruments, threatened life as often as they preserved it. Few understood the causes and treatments of infection. Doctoring consisted mostly of bleeding, blistering, and vomiting (which was deemed of excellent use, by opening and squeezing all the glands of the body and then shaking from the nervous system, the contaminating poison. Over 25,000 soldiers died. Being true to oneself and one’s Maker eventually cost them their lives, but it also ensured of them eternal life and exaltation. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

There was evidenced outstanding courage in the colonies. Could you imagine the courage it took to be a doctor in the war and a soldier, and to face a king whose dominion the record said reached to the end of the Earth? The disruptions of urban life were profound. In September 1776, a fire consumed 500 houses, nearly a quarter of the dwellings, in New York City. About half the town’s inhabitants fled when the British occupation began and were replaced by an almost equal number of Loyalists who streamed in from the surrounding countryside. From the standpoint of the inquiring organism, a belief concerning a particular object is significant because it permits the organism to predict what experiences it will have if it acts toward the object in a given way. Pragmatic beliefs are ideas thought to be true about a situation, which yet forms the ground for the actual employment of means to certain actions. Americans knew the Revolution War was dangerous, and had no other country to migrate to, so they had to seek shelter other areas within their own country, or serve in the war. Many did not want to leave their wives and children behind defenseless. This behavior itself may now be regarded as essence. Americans have become known as a people who protect and/or defend their own and individuals capable of making rational decisions, and will come out victoriously under any circumstances. That is why so many people are proud to be American and want to come to America. In our struggles, we have shown we are brave. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6

God gives us the power to try a little harder, to not give up on ourselves when everything seems to beg for our defeat. Americans have become known through the World as honorable people, who have a paradise lifestyle, and are very brave. The meaning of the concept of being American may therefore be given by the set of laws completely specifying the behavior of the Americans under all conditions. These laws are conditional statements relating test conditions to phenomenal results, and such laws, considered as governing behavior, are habits relating action to experiential effect. One of these teachers of the law came and heard them debating, “And they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity; but behold, this was not all—they were people who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted,” reports Alma 53.20. We are all the same way no matter who we are or where we live, no matter what our wealth or position in the World. God really lives and put people in positions of power so they could be noticed and we can emulate these same courageous behaviors in our own lives and homes. Through modern prophets we can come to know the truth, the divine principles which help us live and adjust, which give meaning and direction to our lives. When these divine principles are applied, nothing can defeat us. We cannot cover up who we really are before God’s penetrating gaze. If we are willing, whoever we are, however we are, God will accept us. We cannot give up, no matter what size of our struggles. We are not meant to be fear-haunted and defeated nobodies. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

Many Americans have something deep in their hearts saying that we belong to something higher. And that something higher is an eternal family. We must remember too that our struggles here are not too trivial to interest the Lord. Those of us who follow the developments of astronomy know that lately there has been a big stir in the scientific community about a galaxy prosaically called NGC 1961, which is 220,000 lightyears away. From Los Angeles, California United States of America, NGC 1961 is visible all night because it is circumpolar. It will be highest in the sky shortly before dawn, when it will be lost to the twilight at around 04.22, 26 degrees above your northern horizon. At dusk, it will become visible at around 21.15 (PDT), 16 degrees above your northern horizon. It seems this galaxy has ten times the mass of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and billions of young, hot stars. When we think that our Lord created all that and understands the immensities of space that only boggle our minds, we have difficulty believing that his interest could ever devolve on something as minute as our little pain or concerns. However, the Lord is waiting to help us cope today, and all we have to do is have faith in him, and love God with all our faith and soul. We also must love our neighbor’s as ourselves. Now that we have our freedom, we have forgiven the British and they are our very good friends. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

We must pray in specifics about the problems, little or big, that impede our progress and dull our best dreams and we will find the promise because we are children of God. God will give us the comfort and the counsel that we need, the courage to lift up our heads and face our days with faith and compassion. We should be honored to be in our home country, no matter where that may be. Think how many people in the World would be so honored, to sit in a special meeting with prophets, seers, and revelators. To know who we are is to come to know that we are literally the royal offspring of Deity; and that means we were all born to succeed; in our presxistence we earned a right by our faithfulness and by our commitment to worthy principles to come into mortality in order that we might learn through how to become like our Father, God. That mean, if we understand the gospel correctly, there is not one single failure among us. The lives of many great people will testify that oftentimes they have many failures, and there is no disgrace in falling down; the disgrace is lying there. To get up one more time than we fall is to be a winner. To stay down is to be a loser. “Listen to advice and accept instruction and in the end it will make us wise. Many are the plans in our hearts, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails. What people desire is unfailing love, better to be poor than a liar. The fear of the LORD leads to life: Then one rests content, untouched by trouble,” reports Proverbs 19.20-23. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6