“My testimony to you is that you have come literally “trailing clouds of glory.” If you only knew who you are and what you did and how you earned the privileges of mortality, and not just mortality but of this time, this place, this dispensation, and the associates that have been meant to cross and intertwine with your lives; if you knew now the vision you had then of what this trial, this probation, what in my bitter moments I call this spook alley of mortality, could produce, would produce; if you knew the latent infinite power that is locked up and hidden for your own good now–you would never again yield to any of the putdowns that are a dime a dozen in our culture today. Everywhere pessimism, everywhere suspicion, everywhere the denial of the worth and dignity of man.
I have faith that if only twenty thousand caught hold of God’s living candle on that truth and went out into the world–I don’t care if the vocations are sensational, spectacular, or brilliant–just out in the world being true to the vision, we would not need to defend the cause of Jesus Christ. People would come and ask, “Where have you found such peace? Where have you found the radiance that I sense in your eyes and in your face? How come you don’t get carried away with the world?” And we could answer that the work of salvation is the glorious work of Jesus Christ. But it is also the glorious work of the uncovering and recovering of your own latent divinity. I know that idea is offensive to persons whom I would not wish to offend. I know that it goes against the grain of much that is built into our secular culture. I know that there are those who say there is no proof. But I bear witness that Jesus Christ, if there were none else, is the living proof and that, as you walk in the pattern he has ordained, you will be living proof.” Truman G. Madsen, The Highest in Us, BYU Devotional Address, March, 1974