"Keep each person's name safe in your home," Elder Cree-L Kofford of the Seventy counseled Sunday afternoon.
Elder Kofford related the example of Oscar Kirkham, who served in the First Council of Seventy from 1941-58. The last two entries in a notebook where he had kept his notes were:"Say a good word and Your Name is Safe in Our Home."
"What a blessing it would be if all of us could follow that counsel, if each of our names truly were safe in the home of others," Elder Kofford remarked. "Have you noticed how easy it is to cross over the line and find fault with other people? All too often we seek to be excused from the very behavior we condemn in others. Mercy for me, justice for everyone else is a much too common addiction. When we deal with the name and reputation of another we deal with something sacred in the sight of the Lord.
"There are those among us who recoil in horror at the thought of stealing another person's money or property but who don't give a second thought to stealing another person's good name or reputation. The old adage, 'Never judge another man until you have walked a mile in his footsteps,' is as good advice today as the day it was first uttered."
Continuing, Elder Kofford asked two questions:
"How can you say you love your fellowman when behind his back you seek to diminish his good name and reputation?
"How can you say you love your God when you cannot even love your neighbor?"
"Any feeble attempt to justify such conduct only brings more forcibly to mind these explosive words of the Savior found in the book of Matthew (12:34,36-37): 'O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.' "
Then, speaking directly to Primary children, Elder Kofford continued: "Children, I have been trying to teach your moms and dads something very important, but I need your help."
He related the account of Thumper in the children's story of Bambi. Thumper, recounted Elder Kofford, said of baby Bambi, "He doesn't walk very good does he?" Thumper's mother reminded her son, "If you can't say sumthin nice don't say nuthin at all."
Elder Kofford encouraged the children that whenever they hear anyone in their family start to say something bad about someone else that they stamp their feet and repeat Thumper's lesson.
"I pray that the Lord will bless each of us that . . . we may live so that it can be said, 'You name is safe in our home.' "