Welcome to the Classic Speaches Podcasts presented by BYU Speaches, bringing you treasured talks from 70 years of BYU Devotionals.

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This devotional address entitled,

For Such a Time as This, was given on February 16th of 1982 by Barbara B. Smith,

then president of the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

As a member of the Board of Trustees, I recently received a framed mission statement

of the Brigham Young University prepared by President Holland.

I could see embodied in that document the decisions of the Board made over the past few years that I have served as a part of that body.

We've discussed curricula, faculty

members, finances, activities, even such things as the enlargement of the seating capacity of Cougar

Stadium. And this morning I want to assure you that providing you with the very best educational

opportunities is the basis of every

decision that is made by that group of dedicated leaders.

They want you to be prepared to meet every challenge that awaits you, knowing that schooling

itself is a challenge or one long series of them.

With midterm soon approaching, you will be required

to measure how well you are doing in your classes. In a very real sense, you do not know

what you have learned until you put it to a test. A way of life can be designed to create

saints, but it is difficult to measure their progress

until a situation arises which reveals the inner person.

C.S. Lewis gives an example of this kind of examination when he suggests that a crisis does not cause a person to be charitable or ill-tempered. It simply reveals the ill-tempered

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