--- 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: 12 published: 1899-10 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Some Selections Worth Studying," *Improvement Era* 2, no. 12 (October 1899): 930–933.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera212unse 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: improvementera212unse start_page: 930 end_page: 933 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-10) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera212unse 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. --- # Some Selections Worth Studying SELECTIONS WORTH STUDYING. To maintain a high standard of purity in society, the culture of both sexes must be in harmony, and keep equal pace. A pure womanhood must be accompanied by a pure manhood. The same moral law applies alike to both. It would be loosening the founda- tions of virtue to countenance the notion that, because of a difference in sex, man were at liberty to set morality at defiance, and to do that with impunity which, if done by a woman, would stain her character for life. To maintain a pure and virtuous condition of society, therefore, man as well as woman must be pure and virtuous; both alike shunning all acts infringing on the heart, character, and conscience —shunning them as poison, which, once imbibed, can never entirely be thrown out again, but mentally embitters, to a greater or less extent, the happiness of after life. Samuel Smiles. All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those that we find in the present; and we neither feel nor see those that exist in another. Hence we make frequent and troublesome changes without amendment, and often for the worse. In my youth I was passenger in a little sloop descending the river Delaware. There being no wind, we were obliged, when the ebb was spent, to cast anchor, and wait for the next.' The heat of the sun on the vessel was excessive, the company strangers to me and not very agreeable. Near the river-side I saw what I took to be a pleasant, green meadow, in the middle of which was a large, — shady tree, where it struck my fancy I could sit and read having a book in my pocket — and pass the time agreeably till the tide turned. I therefore prevailed with the captain to put me ashore. Being landed, I found the greatest part of my meadow was really — — — — SOME SELECTIONS WORTH STUDYING. 931 a marsh, in crossing which, to come at my tree, I was up to my knees in mire; and I had not placed myself under its shade five minutes before the mosquitoes in swarms found me out, attacked my legs, hands and face, and made my reading and my rest impos- sible; so that I returned to the beach and called for the boat to come and take me on board again, where I was obliged to bear the heat I had striven to quit, and also the laugh of the company. Similar cases in the affairs of life have since frequently fallen under my observation. Benjamin Franklin. And so, dearest, I solemnly devote myself to thee, and thank thee that thou hast thought me not unworthy to be thy companion on the journey of life. * * * There is no land of happiness here below — know I it now — but a land of toil, where every joy but strengthens us for greater labor. Hand- in-hand we shall traverse it, and encourage and strengthen each other, until our spirits — oh, may it be together — shall rise to the eternal fountain of all peace. Fichte, the German tutor, to his betrothed. Like you, I become more and more alive to the happiness which consists in the fulfillment of duty. I believe there is no other so deep and so real. There is only one great object in the world which deserves our efforts, and that is the good of man- kind. Memoirs of DeTocqueville. am fallen into the hands of publicans and sequestrators, and I they have taken all from me; what now? Let me look about me. They have left me the sun and moon, a loving wife, and many friends to pity me, and some to relieve me and I can still dis- ; course, and, unless I list, they have not taken away my merry countenance and my cheerful spirit, and a good conscience; they have still left me the providence of God, and all the promises of the Gospel, and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them, too; and still I sleep and digest, I eat and drink, I read and meditate. * * * And he that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevish- ness, who leaves all these pleasures, and choses to sit down upon his little handful of thorns. From Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Living." The slave may be as free as the consul; and freedom is the — 932 IMPROVEMENT ERA. chief of blessings; itdwarfs all others; beside it all others are insignificant; with it all others are needless; without it no others are possible. * * * You must teach men that happiness is not where, in their blindness and misery, they seek it. It is not in strength, for Myro and Ofelius were not happy; not in wealth, for Croesus was not happy; not in power, for the consuls were not happy; not in all these together, for Nero and Sardanapalus and Agamemnon sighed and wept and tore their hair, and were the slaves of circumstances and the dupes of semblances. It lies in yourselves; in true freedom, in the absence or conquest of every ignoble fear; in perfect self-government; and in the power of contentment and peace, and the even flow of life amid poverty, exile, disease, and the very valley of the shadow of death. Sayings of Epidetus. Oliver Goldsmith tells the following anecdote to illustrate with what passion we all cling to life, and how the love of life increases with old age. We are habituated to the prison, we look around with discontent, are displeased with the abode, and yet the length of our captivity only increases our fondness for the cell. But the same anecdote illustrates very forcibly, also, the power of environment over us: Chinvang the Chaste, ascending the throne of China, com- manded that all who were unjustly detained in prisons during the preceding reigns should be set free. Among the number who came to thank their deliverer on this occasion there appeared a majestic old man, who falling at the emperor's feet, addressed him as follows: "Great father of China, behold a wretch, now eighty- five years old, who was shut up in a dungeon at the age of twenty- two. I was imprisoned, though a stranger to crime, or without being even confronted by my accusers. I have now lived in soli- tude and darkness for more than fifty years, and am grown familiar with distress. As yet, dazzled with the splendor of that sun to which you have restored me, I have been wandering the streets to find out some friend that would assist, or relieve, or remember me; but my friends, my family, and relations are all dead, and I am forgotten. Permit me, then, Chinvang, to wear the wretched remains of my life in my former prison; the walls of my dungeon —— — — SOME SELECTIONS WORTH STUDYING. 933 are to me more pleasing than the most splendid palace:I have not long to live, and shall be unhappy except I spend the rest of my — days where my youth was passed in that prison from whence you were pleased to release me."