Molasses on a Straw, or a Club?

(This is a conversation example, but it is primarily religious in content, so I am putting it here instead of my Random Eikaiwa blog.

Bee: Oh, that Brigham Young. He makes me soooo mad.

Kay: I know! He was such an evil person.

Non-chan: What did he do? I thought he was a prophet.

Kay: He was! And that's the problem with this Church.

Bee: Well, we shouldn't paint the whole church bad just because of him.

Hal: Hi guys, whatcha talking about?

Non-chan: Brigham Young.

Kay: Ssshhh.

Bee: Nothing.

Hal: Oh, Brigham Young. Seems like every ten years or so, somebody digs up something he said, quotes it out of context, and makes a fuss about it. Then somebody with a cooler head explains it, and it wasn't that bad after all.

Kay: See. Hal just doesn't know anything.

Hal: Yeah. I'm out of it. Haven't got a clue. So, what's got your back up?

Non-chan: Backup?

Hal: Sorry. Old expression. What's making, uhm, whom, mad?

Non-chan: Yeah, Bee, what is upsetting you?

Bee: He was such a violent person! He said you should hit people who don't understand over the head with a two-by-four!

Non-chan: No way! Really!

Kay: I've heard of that.

Bee: I have the quote right here:

You may pound one Elder over the head with a two-by-four, and he does not know but what you have handed him a straw dipped in molasses to suck.

Kay: Very violent.

Hal: Oh, boy. And everybody complains when I get dramatic.

Non-chan: Huh?

Hal: (Face-palms.)

Bee: What? I'm not being dumb. It says it right here!

Hal: Quoted out of context.

Non-chan: What's a two-by-four?

Kay: It's a piece of wood that you build a house out of. Four inches wide, two inches thick, however long. That's ten centimeters wide and five centimeters thick.

Bee: Like hitting someone over the head with a baseball bat.

Kay: Or worse.

Hal: Okay, I looked it up on the Internet, and here it is, with a little more context:

You may, figuratively speaking, pound one Elder over the head with a
club, and he does not know but what you have handed him a straw dipped
in molasses to suck. There are others, if you speak a word to them, or take
a straw and chasten them, whose hearts are broken; they are as tender in
their feelings as an infant, and will melt like wax before the flame. You must
not chasten them severely; you must chasten according to the spirit that is
in the person. Some you may talk to all day long, and they do not know
what you are talking about. There is a great variety. Treat people as they are
(Discourses of Brigham Young, Widtsoe, p. 150).

Bee: Quoting more doesn't change what he said! He said we should hit people over the head with a club!

Kay: He at least said we could!

Non-chan: I'm not sure that's what he meant.

Hal: It was a figure of expression, and an example of different ways people take things when you tell them they are wrong. Some people, you can use strong language with. Some you have to be careful. There is a great variety -- many different kinds of people, and we should treat people as they are.

Non-chan: He even said, "figuratively speaking".

Kay: But he said "pound one elder over the head with a club"!

Bee: And he said you can talk all day to some people and they still don't understand. Hmm.

Kay: Hey!

Bee: Okay, maybe he didn't say we should.

Kay: Don't just give up the fight!

Bee: I'm not saying I like him, just that maybe I was misinterpreting this one.

Hal: I think he may have said too much on occasion, but that also was part of the way people discussed things back then. Different times, different ways of talking, even though it looks like the same English. Let me see if I can find something on a similar subject. Ah. This is from the unabridged Journal of Discourses, coincidentally on page 150 of volume nine:

Break not the spirit of any person ....

Kay: I want that in context!

Hal: Okay.

What a pity it would be if we were led by one man to utter destruction! Are you afraid of this? I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by Him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken that influence they could give to their leaders, did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way. Let every man and woman know, by the whispering of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking the path the Lord dictates, or not. This has been my exhortation continually.
Brother Joseph W. Young remarked this morning that he wished the people to receive the word of the Lord through his servants, be dictated by them, and have no will of their own. I would express it in this wise: God has placed within us a will, and we should be satisfied to have it controlled by the will of the Almighty.

Non-chan: Almighty?

Bee: That's God. I'll read for a bit.

Let the human will be indomitable for right. It has been the custom of parents to break the will until it is weakened, and the noble, Godlike powers of the child are reduced to a comparative state of imbecility and cowardice. Let that heaven-born property of human agents be properly tempered and wisely directed, instead of pursuing the opposite course, and it will conquer in the cause of right. Break not the spirit of any person, but guide it to feel that it is its greatest delight and highest ambition to be controlled by the revelations of Jesus Christ; then the will of man becomes Godlike in overcoming the evil that is sown in the flesh, until God shall reign within us to will and do of his good pleasure.

Kay: Whoa, whoa! That's too much!

Bee: He says one thing, then he says another. He worries that members of the Church will trust their leaders too much and lose their willpower, but then he says that we should subject our will perfectly to God.

Non-chan: Is God a man?

Kay: But, ... our leaders are our representatives of God.

Hal: But not God. Can I read a bit more?

Kay: Let me.

Let all persons be fervent in prayer, until they know the things of God for themselves and become certain that they are walking in the path that leads to everlasting life; then will envy, the child of ignorance, vanish, and there will be no disposition in any man to place himself above another; for such a feeling meets no countenance in the order of heaven. (Volume 9, Journal of Discourses, Brigham Young, page 150.)

Kay: But, if we lose our will to God, we still lose our will?

Hal: Who gave us our will?

Kay: The natural man is an enemy to God.

Hal: That's from the third chapter of Mosiah, but read the whole thing:

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Book of Mormon, Mosiah 3: 19.)

Non-chan: How do we tell the difference between the Holy Spirit and unholy spirits?

Bee: Isn't that what our leaders teach us?

Hal: Well, let's look at seventh chapter of Moroni:

For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God. (Book of Mormon, Moroni 7: 16.)

Non-chan: That sounds like your conscience.

Hal: Precisely.

Kay: But of course, it doesn't mean everything.

Hal: Everything which invites us to do good and believe in that God that helps us do good.

Kay: But thinking for yourself is bad.

Hal: Brigham Young said his son had said something that sounded like that, but he somewhat politely disagreed. Rather strongly disagreed.

Bee: But if we disagree with our leaders, that must be wrong, right?

Non-chan: Maybe it depends on how we go about disagreeing?

Hal: I think so.

Kay: But our leaders can't be wrong, can they?

Non-chan: If they couldn't be wrong, why would Brigham Young worry?

Hal: I've prayed about it, and the answer I get is that helping our leaders get things right is part of that influence for good that Brigham Young talks about, when we know for ourselves.

Bee: Can you back that up in scriptures?

Hal: Sort of. But if I just convince you of it, then you haven't found out for yourself. It's there if you'll look and pray, but I have to warn you about one thing.

Bee: What's that?

Hal: Once you start listening to God, it's better to keep listening. Thinking you know it all is a really bad habit.

Kay: So said from the know it all.

Hal: Mea culpa. My bad. Forgive me of that, huh?