Editor’s Table

EDITOR'S TABLE. THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE IMPROVEMENT ASSO- CIATIONS. The annual conference of the Improvement Associations of Zion, which began on the 10th day of June, the date twenty-five years ago when the first association was organized, was a refreshing feast to the workers in the cause. President Joseph F. Smith, who attended and presided over all the general conjoint meetings and the officers' meetings of the young men, in his opening remarks on Sunday, referred, with regret, to the illness which prevented President Lorenzo Snow from attending, and asked that the prayers of the youDg people might be uttered for his speedy recovery, as had been done in the opening prayer by Elder J. Golden Kimball- Speaking of the auxilliary organizations of The Church, he impressed the audience with the truth that the work of the Mutual Improvement Associations is of paramount importance, dealing, as it does, with men and women who are in the critical period when the character is developed. He pointed out a doctrinal truth that should be repeated and deeply impressed upon all young Latter-day Saints. It is this, that we are required and it is necessary not only to do good, but to do so in the way that God has commanded, and with willing minds and hearts. He deprecated the feeling which seemed to be growing among the young that the religions handed down by learned men are just as good as the revealed religion of the Latter-day Saints. That there is good in all religions, he readily

694 IMPROVEMENT ERA. granted, but he impressed the fact that, aside from the Priesthood of The Church, all men act without authority, and hence are not doing good in the Lord's way. All the good done where authority exists is done according to God's command, and hence is accepted of him; for God requires the heart and the willing mind and heart, and that we yield everything for the truth, in the way he desires it performed. Jesus impressed the needed lesson, when, in the agony of the garden, he exclaimed, "0 my Father, * not as I will, but as thou wilt." This feeling of implicit obedience to the will of the Father, in the way he has appointed, is the distinguishing feature between the true Church of Christ and the churches of the world. It is said that order is the first law of heaven, but before order is obedience, for that brings order. Obedience is so important that even the son of God was strictly obedient to his Father in the smallest matter as well as in affairs of greater moment. Even in baptism he rendered obedience, to fulfill the law of the Father. Let the associations impress this lesson, so that the youth of Zion may not be so blind that they can not see the difference between our religion and the religions of the world. Another important teaching was dwelt upon in the officers' meeting on Tuesday. It was that The Church does not sanction its members to affiliate with secret orders. It is of far-reaching import, and affects many young men in The Church. There were several hundred leading young men present, representatives from thirty-nine out of forty-two Stakes of Zion, and they unanimously accepted the counsel of The Church on this subject of secret associations. In reply to a question, President Smith stated that no young man should hereafter be selected to fill any position in the Improvement Associations, who was a member of any secret society. The spirit of these societies is contrary to the genius of the Gospel, and no Latter-day Saint should partake of it. Their requirements are such that they fetter the liberty of those who join. They require the person's heart and soul first in their interest, and gradually lead him, tied hand and foot, from the ranks of the Saints. The Lord requires that the Kingdom of God and his righteousness shall be uppermost with his people, whereas, to the member of secret associations, the obligations of the order are

EDITORS TABLE. 695 paramount. It was therefore counseled that the bonds between members of The Church and the secret organizations be honorably broken, and that hereafter all Church members avoid joining them. Among the matters of business which came up for consideration, were the secretary's reports from which it appears that we have 544 associations with a membership of 28,747. There were $1878.92 collected on the Improvement Fund, an increase of $33.61 over last year. Out of the amount, $1596.79 had been expended in the cause of the associations for secretary's services, railroad fares, postage, printing, etc. The Improvement Era was discussed, and general satisfaction was expressed with our magazine which has come out of its third volume, its critical year, with the colors of success raised high, especially when it is remembered that nearly two thousand missionaries have been supplied with the volume with only a few hundred dollars in aid from other sources. The officers were urged to renewed effort, in its behalf, for the coming year, and it will be the aim to make the Era more useful and more interesting than ever before. An important step in advance, voted upon by the conference, was the decision to grade the associations where conditions will warrant. It was decided that the officers should consider their duty to the associations over which they preside, first, among the calls of the auxiliary organizations, and that when ward officers are selected the stake superintendency should be consulted. Vital instructions were given upon "How to Improve Class Work." "Missionary Work," and "Preparation for the Opening of the Season." Other topics treated were "The Permanency of the Associations," "Duties of Secretaries," "Improvement Fund," etc., much of which it is intended shall be embodied in a circular of instruction to the officers. A rich social treat was the reception tendered by the general boards to the stake officers, and which was held on Tuesday evening, at the home of Mrs. A. W. McCune. The decorations, refreshments, music, dancing, and above all, the free sociability and fraternal feeling, were all that could be desired, and were greatly enjoyed by the hundreds who were privileged to attend. Now may God grant that all who took part in this conference

696 IMPROVEMENT ERA. may instill its spirit of progress into all the associations of The Church, and labor to enlist the mass of young people in the living and active interest of mutual improvement, and in The Church and cause of God. The progress of the next quarter century, in great measure, devolves upon present workers. The possibilities are grand; what shall be the result? That is for them to answer. THE ONLY SURVIVING SON OP SIDNEY RIGDON. Among the recent visitors to Salt Lake City, not one has attracted more interest, from early members of The Church, than John W. Rigdon of New York City, the only surviving son of Sidney Rigdon who was one of the early workers in the cause of God, and once the first counselor to the Prophet Joseph. Patriarch John Smith and John W. Rigdon were school companions in Nauvoo, and Mr. Rigdon also knew President Lorenzo Snow. His object in coming to Utah was to call upon some of his old-time friends. On Saturday, May 19, he visited with President Lorenzo Snow, and spent some time in the President's office. Mr. Rigdon is a pleasant gentleman, well on in years, having been born in Mentor, Ohio, in 1830. His hair and mustache are white. He has a thin face, a round, full voice, bright eyes, and a nervous, sensitive nature. In manner, he is very affable; in conversation, ready and intelligent. He stands erect, and his rather tall but thin form lends him a dignified bearing. He carried as a souvenir a cane which had been taken from the oaken boxes in which the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum were brought from Carthage to Nauvoo, after the martyrdom. That Mr. Rigdon is by profession a lawyer was evidenced by his ready logic, and the ease in which he gave expression to his sentiments. In speaking of old scenes in and about Nauvoo, he was several times affected to tears, especially was this the case when the later lonely and brooding life of his father was referred

EDITOR'S TABLE. 697 to, and when he spoke of his own early days in Nauvoo: "In Nauvoo were the happiest days of my life," he said. "When I went to Pennsylvania, I was a stranger, and I became very homesick for Nauvoo. I think the people ought never to have left Nauvoo; but then, it was, perhaps, for the best." On entering the President's office, President Snow introduced Mr. Rigdon to several who were present, and in so doing called him Brother Rigdon, which apparently intentional slip he partly corrected by remarking, "Mr. Rigdon says he is a half 'Mormon.' " To this the visitor, quickly awakening as if his whole nervous force were called upon in the effort, replied: "I am a 'Mormon' this far: I believe in the early 'Mormonism.' I believe Joseph Smith found the plates of that Book of Mormon, when, where and in the manner he claimed he did. I know my father never wrote the book. He never varied in telling the story of how Joseph obtained it. He always related it in the same way, and I believe he told the truth. At one time," he continued, "I had doubts about this, but I have come to know these facts, although I might not be able to prove them as I could prove some other things. When I went to father just before his death, and told him that if he knew anything regarding the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, that had not been told, he owed it as a duty to himself and his family, to tell it, he reiterated that he had but one story to tell, and that was the story told him by the Prophet Joseph Smith, that the records from which the book was taken were engraved on gold plates. Father then testified to me that Joseph was a prophet of God, and that an angel had handed him the plates from which was taken the Book of Mormon. I believe this testimony, although for a long time I was skeptical about it. So far, I am a 'Mormon,' and my heart is with your people. So was my father's; he never permitted any man in his presence to speak disrespectfully of The Church." Speaking of his baptism he seemed proud of having been baptized by Hyrum Smith, the patriarch, in the presence of his own father and the Prophet Joseph. ' 'I was sick, he said, "and I remember well how father, who was one of those positive men, came in one morning and said, 'Well boys, you are to be baptized today/ Sick as I was, I knew it was no use resisting, and so was taken and baptized in the river. I quickly recovered thereafter." He related

698 IMPROVEMENT ERA^ other interesting experiences incident to his boyhood life in The Church which were corroborated by Patriarch Smith and deeply enjoyed by the other listeners. Mr. Rigdon has been in Utah once before, having crossed the plains with an ox team in 1863. He then called on President Young, who urged him to ask his father to come and reside in Salt Lake. He wrote his father to this effect, but the invitation was never accepted. Mr. Rigdon has a wife, two daughters and a son. His son, who resides in California, has visited Salt Lake City, on other occasions. Speaking of his father, Mr. Rigdon, in a later interview affirmed that the two points on which his father hung out were polygamy and the accession of Brigham Young to the leadership of The Church, and although he never recovered from the humiliation, and spent the remainder of his days in silence, whenever The Church was assailed, the old fire would kindle in his eyes, he would become animated, and the assailant would soon retire a thoroughly whipped man. PRAYERS AND WORK FOR THE DEAD. One of the leading points in the new revelations which were received by the Prophet Joseph Smith, was the importance of the relation between the living and the dead. In the remarks of the angel Moroni, who visited Joseph as a messenger of God, the Prophet is taught, that before the great and dreadful day of the Lord, Elijah " shall plant in the hearts of the children, the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers; if it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming." In a later vision beheld in the Kirtland temple, Elijah, the prophet, stood before Joseph and Oliver Cowdery and said: Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth

EDITORS TABLE. 699 of Malachi, testifying that he (Elijah) should be sent before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come, To turn the hearts or the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse. Therefore the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands, and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near even at the doors. From that time on, the hearts of the Latter-day Saints have been turned to their ancestors. The Lord has made plain to them that all the departed may be saved, and that in order to make this salvation possible, it is the duty of the living to officiate in vicarious work for the dead. It is the duty of the living to be baptized and sealed, and have other ordinances performed for the dead. For this reason, the Saints have built temples wherever they have gone. Temples mark their exile path across the greater part of the western continent — at Kirtland and Nauvoo, temples were built and dedicated, and a beginning in Missouri was made at Independence where a temple site was chosen and the corner designated by the deposit of a large stone, and in Far West the foundation was prepared and the south-east corner stone laid by the Apostles in compliance with revelation — and in their mountain commonwealth there are four of these sacred edifices upon which millions of dollars have been lavished to make them acceptable places for sacred vicarious ordinances which shall in time fully link together the past and the present, the living and the dead. No other people are so interested in the past as the Latter-day Saints, no other people have performed ceremonies which have so completely linked them with their departed loved ones, or who have gathered from the fathers that return of kind remembrance for the children, which is a source of undying inspiration to the human soul. In verity, with them there is a connecting link, forged by prayer and sacred ordinance, which has indeed turned the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers. Through them the threatened curse upon the earth will be averted. In England, at the present time, the early Christian doctrine of prayers for the dead is being discussed in religious circles. It has been brought forcibly to the attention of both the national and the free-church bodies by the African war.

700 IMPROVEMENT ERA. In a recent issue of the Christian World, the following occurs: And why should we not pray for the dead? What is prayer, in the best conception of it, but the following of those we love with aspiration and affection, with desire for their highest good, with the whole best emotion of our soul? What barbarous infidelity has taught us that death interposes a limit to this outgoing? The notion that those who now rest in God are, because of that, beyond the reach or need of prayer, is heathen, and not Christian. It is disloyal at once to God, to the departed themselves, and to our own best instincts. There is no position, not that of heaven's central point; there is no condition, not that of supremest blessedness, that is outside the range of love. In proportion as it is blessed, the soul, whether on earth or in heaven, is more and more open to love's approach; and both here and in heaven, it is love that is the essence of prayer "We have neglected our dead, and in so doing have weakened one of the most intimate of our links with the unseen. We have put up in our minds barriers that do not correspond with the reality, and so have obstructed the flow of some of the grandest of the human inspirations. The mind revolts against these limitations. Its prophetic instinct recognizes them as a mistake. If the people of England are really desirous of correcting their mistakes in this regard; if they desire the welfare and highest good of their dead, as well as salvation for the living, they may learn inestimable truths, leading to these ends, from the Latterday Saints; truths which have been revealed directly from God- This people are constantly doing work for the redemption of the dead, and the blessing and salvation of the living; and they do it in the right way, in the way God has commanded. Laboring among the people of England are more than four hundred missionaries who are anxious to explain to them the true plan of redemption for the dead and salvation for the living. Let their voices be heard, and their message be heeded. They have the keys of this dispensation, and their warnings may be taken as signs that the day of the Lord is near at hand. Nearly two thousand such messengers are proclaiming this Gospel plan in all the world. Let the nations give heed thereto, and live, and look to

EDITORS TABLE. 701 Zion to learn the true ways of the Lord, so that they may prepare to walk therein. A NEW EDITION OF "SUCCESSION. Among the books of special interest to the young men of The Church which will issue from the press this summer, will be a second edition of Succession in the Presidency of The Church, by Elder B. H. Roberts. The first edition of this book was published in 1894, the object of it being to refute the false claims of the "Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." The little work has been very successful in its mission, as the demand for a second edition, in so short a time since the first was issued, abundantly proves. The second edition will be carefully revised and in some places enlarged by the author. The additions will consist, in the main, in a collection of evidence to the fact that the Prophet Joseph projected the movement of The Church westward, and really organized an exploring party for the purpose of finding a suitable location for The Church. Elder Roberts has in his possession the affidavits of two of the members of that company, viz. : of Samuel W. Richard and Joseph A. Kelting, the latter not now a member of The Church, living in San Bernardino County, California. These affidavits will, of course, be published in the forthcoming edition; and the author will also add his article, first published in the Era, "A Sufficient Answer to Josephites." This article, it will be remembered, created, at the time of its publication, a profound impression upon all interested in the subject under discussion. What will add an increased interest in the little work of Elder Roberts is the fact that the Josephite Church has attempted a "Reply," which in a series of foot-notes Elder Roberts will answer, and point out the weakness and sophistry of the Josephite conten-

702 IMPROVEMENT ERA. tion. Speaking with Elder Roberts the other day with reference to the forthcoming book, he incidentally called attention to the fact that a statement made by him in the first edition of "The Succession," to the effect that some in high standing in the "Reorganized Church" had joined in the hue and cry against the Saints in Utah, and had aided in the work of misrepresentation (Succession p. Ill) — was challenged by the author of the Josephite "Reply." He says, at page 100: The Reorganization has, by action of the body, as well as through its committees and representatives, favored wholesome legislation against the crimes of polygamy and unlawful cohabitation; but we challenge the proof that we have aided in the work of misrepresentation. To this Elder Roberts is prepared to quote, in support of his statement that, "Some of our friends of high standing in the 'Reorganization' have joined in the hue and cry against the Saints of God and have aided in the work of misrepresentation" — he is prepared to quote the Chicago papers which reported the speech of Joseph Smith, the president of the Re-organized Church, which he made at Chicago on the 22ud of February, 1882, during — it will be remembered — the great anti-polygamy crusade of that year. The Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean of Feb. 23, represents Joseph Smith as having said that: There were many men in Utah who were single because they said they had no assurance they could find for wives women who were not contaminated. They might go to the farm houses to choose wives, but could not feel certain that some of the bishops had not been there and robbed the daughters of their virtue. The Chicago Times' version of this part of the same speech, under the caption "A Lusty War Cry," (issue of Feb. 23, 1882) is as follows: There are hundreds and thousands of Mormons in Utah who will not marry wives because they do not know where to get wives that have not been contaminated. They do not know what houses have escaped the invasion of lecherous bishops who have robbed hundreds of women of their purity. The men cannot afford to take the risks that marriage means.

EDITORS TABLE. 703 Armed with evidence of this character, there can be no question but that the challenge of Elder Roberts' original statement will be completely met. Indeed, it was in view of these very attacks upon the young womanhood of Utah that the original statement was made. "Many vile and vicious things," remarked Elder Roberts, in conversation on the subject of this speech — '"many vile and vicious things have been said of the Saints in Utah, but it was reserved for Joseph Smith, the president of the Re-organized Church to say at once the most untruthful, the lowest, the most contemptible, cowardly and vicious thing that ever was said of a much-maligned and misrepresented people. And what makes it so utterly inexcusable is the fact that the speaker knew better; for he had been in Utah, and had been among the people sufficiently to know that no such conditions as he describes in that speech existed. It was malicious, wilful misrepresentation. He bore false witness against his neighbors." It is expected that the new edition of The Succession will issue from the press of George Q. Cannon & Sons in a few weeks; and we predict for this second edition a repetition of the success which attended upon the first. HISTORIC PARALLELS. That July is a historic month in the life of The Church, the first article in this number of the Era will serve to remind the reader. The similarity between the story of the Pilgrims and that of the Pioneers, developed therein by the author, Nephi Anderson, will awaken renewed interest in this subject, among the young men, as, in the "chambers of the mountains," they patriotically celebrate the glorious July holidays. A parallel of equally impressive character, will be presented to our readers in the Era for August, from the pen of Major