In general conference of April 1982, President Gordon B. Hinckley placed a broad application upon the Lord's injunction to Lyman Sherman, "Therefore, strengthen your brethren in all your conversation, in all your prayers, in all your exhortations, and in all your doings." (D&C 108:7.)
President Hinckley, then a counselor in the First Presidency, said:"We live in a society that feeds on criticism. Faultfinding is the substance of columnists and commentators, and there is too much of this among our own people. It is so easy to find fault, and to resist doing so requires much of discipline. But if as a people we will build and sustain one another, the Lord will bless us with the strength to weather every storm and continue to move forward through every adversity. The enemy of truth would divide us and cultivate within us attitudes of criticism which, if permitted to prevail, will only deter us in the pursuit of our great divinely given goal. We cannot afford to permit it to happen. We must close ranks and march shoulder to shoulder, the strong helping the weak, those with much assisting those with little. No power on earth can stop this work if we shall so conduct ourselves."
