Tad R. Callister wrote:
Elder Marion G. Romney [taught]: “Jesus then went into the Garden of Gethsemane. There he suffered most. He suffered greatly on the cross, of course, but other men had died by crucifixion. . . . But no man, nor set of men, nor all men put together, ever suffered what the Redeemer suffered in the garden” (Conference Report, October 1953, 35; emphasis added).
What a doctrine! The composite suffering of all men, of all ages, of all worlds does not surpass the Savior’s suffering in the Garden. How can we begin to comprehend the cumulative suffering of all mankind, or as taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney, “the piled up agony of the human race” (Saturday Night Thoughts, Salt Lake City 1921. 152)? What is thrown on the scale of remorse, as observed by Turman Madsen, when we aggregate “the cumulative impact of our vicious thoughts, motives, and acts” (Christ and the Inner Life, Salt Lake City, 1988, 4)? What, as Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone inquired, is the “weight and intensity of the penalties of all broken laws crying from the dust and from the future—an incomprehensible tidal wave of guilt” (The Disciple of Christ. Salt Lake City, 1984,4)? How many searing consciences has this world produced and to what depths of depravity has this earthly sphere sunk? Not only did the Savior fathom it—he felt it, and he suffered it. ~Tad R. Callister, The Gift of the Atonement (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book 2002) p. 46
