--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 2 number: 10 published: 1899-08 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Honor Thy Parents," *Improvement Era* 2, no. 10 (August 1899): 734.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera210unse 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: improvementera210unse start_page: 734 end_page: 734 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-08) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera210unse 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. --- # Honor Thy Parents HONOR THY PARENTS. Because you have been a little better educated than were your father and mother, don't imagine that you know it all. They may have more native intelligence than you, and more knowledge, through life's hard experiences, than you can ever possess. At any rate, all that you have in the way of learning you owe to their self- denial and to their determination that you should have better op- portunities than Your ingratitude is made glaringly they had. apparent when you address them in terms in which your scorn of what you consider their shortcomings is only slightly veiled. And when you go farther and refer to them in derogatory terms to your acquaintances you are far from being a gentleman. No matter how lacking in worldly polish your parents may be they are deserving of your kind consideration atall times and in all places. The human diamond in the rough is still a diamond, and no doubt in heaven will shine with greater luster than many who have dazzled by their false brilliancy on earth. The young fellow full of life and energy is apt to be hard and unfeeling, and he needs the constant restraint of the practices of his religion to make him humane. When he is inclined to ignore the reverence that he owes his father, let him not forget that he may one day be a father himself, and before he speaks of his good mother as the " old woman," let him realize that his wife may one day be a mother. As he would like his own son to be, let him be himself.