"During one instance, he even gave up the very
shirt off his back to provide a newborn baby extra warmth..."
Robert Taylor Burton, Rescuer
Robert was 35 years old when he was called to rescue the handcart companies stranded and starving in order to provide them with the food and clothes they so desperately needed. Robert was a very tedious record keeper, journaling of his events every day to the supplies he distributed. During one instance, he even gave up the very shirt off his back to provide a newborn baby extra warmth for the journey to the Great Salt Lake Valley. In sacrificing his own warmth for the comfort of the new baby, Robert exemplified the way he continued to live throughout his life. Among his final words of advice to his children was the admonition to “be kind to the poor.” Leading men of Utah who spoke at his funeral articulated his character in these words: “Genial; charitable; a general in the army of right, in the army of truth and of love; integrity; honor; years filled with good works; tender-hearted; sympathetic, worthy of confidence; never false to God, to himself or to his fellow-man, friend or foe.”
THOUGHT FROM THE STAKE: Of all the noble characteristics we were sent to earth to develop, it is pure, heartfelt kindness (I believe) that will be the one to exalt us. Oh how the Savior must smile when He witnesses a kind act of one person toward another, for no other motivation than love. Words may become meaningless phrases to be forgotten, but an unsolicited kind act sends a message to the Heavens, to Him, that we believe and are bound to Him. For He has said that, "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me." With all that He does to serve us individually, how happy it must make Him, when we serve Him, individually. May it be said of us at the end of our days, like Robert Taylor Burton, that we were "a general in the army of right, in the army of truth and of love."
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