"My Mormon upbringing...taught me that while the life of the mind was exciting and virtuous, ti also involved responsibilities--there were limits.  Building on the example of my mentors, I came to believe that we ought to make and advance knowledge by research and writing; we ought to transmit knowledge and skills by teaching and lecturing; and we ought to help others lead ethical, fulfilling lives by talks, counseling, and good example.  As we devote ourselves heart and soul to solving particular intellectual and social problems, we must also keep our sights open to the large (not always answerable) questions of human and divine meaning and purpose.  We must be lucid and humane, honest and helpful, devoted to our scholarly callings and loyal to our faith and community. We must cultivate both social skills and spiritual virtues--humility, faith, courage, and good will.  Humility would dispose us to learn from others, faith in the gospel to retain our moorings, courage to open our beliefs to critical examination and change, and good will to be fair and just in considering the people and practices that come before us--these virtues were taught by the scriptures, by Joseph smith, by modern revelation, and by the great philosophers; they would help us in our spiritual quest for exaltation.  Above all, we ought to eschew the rootless life not tied to divine instruction, healthy tradition, and robust piety."

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 23-24)

Humor and forthrightness helped early Latter-day Saints disponse of contradictions, conflicts, and frustrations in a socially healthy manner.  There was, for them, no conflict between piety and moderate levity, reverence and straightforward candidness.  The documents of church history are replete with missionary stories, occasional pranks, and the betowal of nicknames as a means of deflating pretension, hypocrisy, vanity, and excessive pride.  They also contain celebrations of the goodness of God, the complexity of the world he created and the sublimity of the life he gives.  The early Saints' sense of balance between candid humor and reverence did not undermine their faith, but instead gave them a strong sense of group identity and illustrated the strengths of their movement.  Devotion to their cause allowed such balance.  More generally, it helped them develop the evolving self-respect that one would expect of a community of God's chose people.

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 8)