--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Amelia, Princess collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 3 number: 5 published: 1900-03 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Princess Amelia, "A Contrast: A Poem," *Improvement Era* 3, no. 5 (March 1900): 347.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera35unse 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: improvementera35unse start_page: 347 end_page: 347 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1900-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera35unse publication_year: 1900 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 1900, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # A Contrast: A Poem CAUSES LEADING UP TO THE REFORMATION. 347 from without keeps a solid body intact, and compresses even a loose organism into compactness. As long as such a condition existed, the inner purity of the primitive church remained unsullied. But the time came when church and state were combined. The ruler of one became the head of the other, and spiritual affairs were so interwoven with politics that only the spirit of the latter remained. The truth had been given to the world, however, and it was not to be crushed out entirely. In glimpes it was revealed to those who sought it here and there. Such seekers were Wycliffe, Huss, Jerome, Savonarola, and Luther. The first four died for the principles they advocated, and their deaths were not in vain. Each effort paved the way and prepared for the next. The popes became arrogant and greedy for spiritual and temporal power, and made promises which fell to the ground. Idolatry crept in, in the form of image and relic worship. Then came the time when old fallacies were exploded, and the popes were proved fallible. Men had begun to think for themselves, and out of such thinking grew the Reformation. A CONTRAST. Unthinking, idle, vain and young, I talked and laughed, and danced and sung, And, proud of health, of freedom vain, Dreamed not of sorrow or of pain, Accounting, in my hours of glee, The world was only made for me. But when the days of sorrow came. And sickness wrecked my languid frame; When folly's vain pursuits were o'er. And I could sing and dance no more. It then occurred how sad 't would be Were this world only made for me. Princess Amelia.