A boy came to me after Sunday School at the Institute with tears in his eyes, a freshman. He said, "They asked me to pass the sacrament today and I couldn't." I said, "Why not? Are you a member of the Church?" He said, "Yes." "Do you hold the priesthood?" "No." I said , "Why not?" He said, "Well, it's believed in our town that my grandmother in South Carolina had black blood, Negro blood. So my brothers and I have been denied the priesthood. My older brother has quit the Church and gone away angry. I was president of the seminary class last year, and I didn't miss MIA or sacrament meeting." I said, "Why have you stayed in the Church?" He said, "My mother asked me to, and I love her."

So I befriended this young freshman. He was blue-eyed and blond, pleasant, an athlete on a football scholarship. I brought him out here to dinner and had him play football on the back lawn with my little boys. We were good friends while he was at the U for that year. Then he left school.

About two years later he dropped in to my Sunday School class again and said his younger sister, whom I had met, wanted to be married in the temple in June, and he was going to see what he could do to bring it to pass. He'd talked with Mark Petersen and Joseph Fielding Smith, and they were discussing it in the Quorum of the Twelve, he thought. I said, "Keep me posted." On a Tuesday before the Friday that they were to be married in early June, he called me up and said that he had given up on his task. I said, "Let me see what I can do."

So I called Hugh B. Brown, went to see him, and explained the situation. I said, "Can you get to President McKay?" He said, "No, I'm leaving for Canada this afternoon. But I'll see if I can make an appointment for you." So he called me back and said, "President McKay will see you at seven in the morning." This was on Wednesday.

President McKay greeted me cordially and said, "Now, my boy, what's on your mind?" So I explained what the situation was and what it had done to this family. I said, "President McKay, in my experience, the gospel builds life. Here I see it tearing it apart, tearing it down." He said, "When problems like this come to me, I say to myself, 'Sometime I shall meet my Father in Heaven, and what will He say?'" And I said to him, modestly, "He'll forgive you if you err on the side of mercy." He smiled at that and said, "But don't you think it is too late to do something about it?" I said , "No sir." He said, "Leave it to me."

Then he told me that when he was in South Africa recently, they had had a ruling there that to be ordained to the priesthood you had to trace your genealogy out of the country. He said, "I did away with that ruling."

So about 4:30 on Wednesday his office called and asked how to get in touch with this family. And at 7:30 p.m. I called my young friend and said, "Have you heard from President McKay?" He said, "Yes, and so has the stake president and the bishop. My mother and sister are going to the temple Friday."

President McKay said in our conversation, "Now if we let the girl go, it means we should let the boy go too, doesn't it?" I said, "Yes, if he's worthy." This boy called me in September and asked me to come down and ordain him an elder, as he was going on a mission. That was a rich experience for me, beautiful. [voice filled with emotion]