---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Wootton, A.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 2
number: 5
published: 1899-03
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Wootton, A., "Bigotry Opposed to Progress," *Improvement Era* 2, no. 5 (March 1899): 368–369.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera25unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera25unse
start_page: 368
end_page: 369
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-03)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera25unse
  publication_year: 1899
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1899, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Bigotry Opposed to Progress

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BIGOTRY OPPOSED TO PROGRESS.
BY A. WOOTTON.
It is beyond the power of man to estimate to what extent the
progress of the world has been retarded by the practice of judging
a matter before hearing both sides, as instanced by the many cases
during the past ages, where men have been forced by the alternative of death to deny truths that now are universally accepted : while
others, possessing more moral as well as physical courage, have
suffered imprisonment or death rather than deny the truths they
had discovered.
Many scientific truths that are understood by every school-boy
of today, were rejected by the medieval Christians because, forsooth, they were taught in the schools of the despised Jews or the
heretical Saracens. This spirit of intolerance and bigotry, somewhat modified, has been transmitted as a heritage to many of the
present age, so that instead of following the injunction of the Savior
to "love your enemies," many are ready to revile and persecute
even those whose religious opinions differ from their own. It seems
hard for men to give up dogmas that have been instilled in their
minds by early teaching and the traditions of their forefathers for
generations, but men of this age ought to know that the antiquity
of a doctrine does not prove it true; that many of the greater truths
are those of recent discovery. This certainly is true of discoveries
in the sciences, and may it not be just possible that religious principles that appear new to this generation may be the truths of
heaven? Although we may speak of a truth as being newly discovered, we cannot consistently speak of a new truth, for all truth
is as old as the heavens and as eternal as God himself; while error
never was and never can be truth.

<!-- page:369 -->

Men may cling tenaciously to erroneous doctrines like a shipwrecked mariner to the wreck, but eventually the waves of truth
will overwhelm them, and, unless they give up their hold, they will
perish with the wreck.
Who would be content in this age of railways, to travel with
the old slow-going stage-coach, or to light his home with the antiquated tallow candle when the electric lights are blazing in the
homes of his neighbors?
This is exactly the condition of the man who shuts himself in
his narrow creed and refuses to investigate the doctrines of those
who differ from him, no matter how far that difference may extend.
SONNET.
Below, the sea lies blue and cold as steel,
And smooth as satin stretched from shore to shore,
Save where a shimmering fish leaps, or an oar
Reeking with crimson rises, or the keel
Of some ship lets a rough path backward reel;
The sun—a flaming thing—sinks low and lower
And beats upon the West's unclosing door;
The shadows downward creep and reach to feel,
With long black fingers, if the day be dead;
Above, the sky glows like a pearl alight
With a rose-diamond's shifting gold and red;
And o'er the eastern mountains, soft and white.
The moon steps, trembling, from her silver bed
—
A virgin bride—to meet the lips of night,
Ella Higginson.