Letters from Missionaries

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LETTERS FROM MISSIONARIES.

[The author of the first letter, now on a mission in Stavanger, Norway, is a well-known laborer for the right, and a faithful Latter-day Saint. His injunction to purity should have great weight with the young men. The writer of the second letter is one of the Mutual Improvement Association missionaries, 1899-1900, whose field of labor was in Arizona. His remarks on the fifth commandment, written to the members of his home association in Centerville, are worthy the careful consideration of the boys. Editors.]

Although I am quite an old man, I have performed my part, and taken as much interest in the Mutual Improvement Associations as any one. When I was a boy, I often asked the question, whether there was no better, no higher, no nobler aim in this world to live for than what I beheld young men seeking, and aspiring to around me. What did I see? Young men at fourteen, fifteen and sixteen years of age drinking strong drinks, smoking and chewing tobacco, gambling and associating with low and degraded people, men and women. I asked myself the question, was this the object of our coming here to this earth? Was man, the most beautiful of all creation, the most intelligent, the image of God himself, created for this? I felt that if I should take this course in life, 1 should be ashamed of myself, ashamed before all mankind. I should never have the courage to pray to a pure and heavenly being that from my childhood I was taught to call Father. Never in such a condition could I be worthy to enter the presence of the Savior who had offered life and all for my salvation. While these thoughts were in my mind, I heard the servants of God and read an article written by one of the noblest of all men, Apostle Erastus