Marba C. Josephson (1897-1965), a native of Philadelphia, was a teacher, a member of the general Junior Sunday School Board, and a longtime associate editor of the Improvement Era. She shared this story in the Instructor of May 1957 –

Gospel Teaching I Remember Best

God … hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth …” – Acts 17:26

One of the greatest messages of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that of the brotherhood of man, logically following after the concept of the fatherhood of God. This belief is universally accepted among Latter-day Saints and has in turn added to the stature and vitality of the Church.

The various peoples who have joined the Church and who have “gathered” to Zion have brought with them the salient characteristics of their cultures. They who have joined the Church have grafted their cultures onto the trunk of the Church. And the sturdy growth of the Church has been enhanced by this addition of these various contributions.

Such a doctrine of understanding and love for my brothers and sisters I know today and cherish, but it was not always so. The lesson was taught in a rather hard but exceedingly impressive way when I was a very young girl in a small Sunday School in Cannon Ward of Salt Lake City.

Our Sunday School superintendent was a Lancashireman who had accepted the Gospel and moved to America to build for himself and his family a new life, based on the truths he had accepted. He omitted or added his H’s at random, much to the delight of a group of the younger girls who, although admiring him, still giggled a little at what they called his “murder of the king’s English.”

He took the giggling in good part and never seemed to be too perturbed by it, or if he were, he never let the group know.

There moved into the ward a newly converted young man who had formerly lived in what would now be the Central States Mission. He eager entered into Church activity, trying to develop his talents as he knew the Lord wished him to. He was asked to give the 2-1/2 minute talk in Sunday School. Although he had apparently received few advantages of formal schooling, he accepted the challenge and gave the talk without notes, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other and making several grammatical errors, much to the delight of this group of girls who mimicked his mistakes, tittering noticeably.

After his talk, there was still buzzing from the particular corner where the girls sat. The Sunday School superintendent rose slowly to his feet. He looked over the congregation deliberately and quietly until even the giggling girls were uncomfortable and silenced.

Then he said in a calmly penetrating voice, “I am sure that this young man has met many difficult situations, but I am equally sure that this has been one of the most difficult. It is hard to face ridicule from one’s neighbors and associates as he suffered when he joined the Church. But even that would be less difficult than to face rows of cabbages with eyes in their heads.”

The girls had the grace to blush and to feel deep shame for their conduct. The Lancashireman, with his indignant unconcern for the H’s in his brief censure, had served to teach one of the greatest lessons that people young or old can learn: that all men are indeed brothers and that under God’s wise guidance all people are entitled to love and respect for what they are and what they are struggling to become.

Being called a cabbage head may not have been an elegant way to rebuke thoughtless but nonetheless cruel girls, but it was an effective way by which this particular group was shocked into a consciousness that love and understanding are due any of God’s children – a lesson that sobered and matured them.

To this day each of that group remembers with distinctness and a constriction of the heart the lesson taught during that Sunday School session so many, many years ago – and from their own embarrassment they have tried to teach their children and their children’s children the true meaning of brother kindness and love for all of our Father’s children “… on all the face of the earth …”