--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Ella Wheeler Wilcox collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 4 number: 2 published: 1900-12 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Ella Wheeler Wilcox, "Worth the While," *Improvement Era* 4, no. 2 (December 1900): 100.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0402unse 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: improvementera0402unse start_page: 100 end_page: 100 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1900-12) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0402unse 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. --- # Worth the While 100 IMPROVEMEN1 ERA. the elder says, is also to be met with, disappears when our view of the purpose of the sacrament is explained. We administer it in the simple, primitive way in which Christ instituted it, and partake of it often as did the early Saints, instead of surrounding the ordinance with form, pomp and show, and with a solemnity the genuineness of which, from my observation, may^often bejloubted* WORTH THE WHILE. It is easy enough to be pleasant While life flows by like a song, But the man worth while is the man who will smile When everything goes dead wrong. For the test of the heart is trouble, And it always comes with the years, And the smile that is worth the praises of earth Is the smile that shines through tears. It is easy enough to be prudent When nothing tempts you to stray, When without or within no voice of sin Is luring your soul away. But it is only a negative virtue Until it is tried by fire, And the life that is worth the honor of earth Is the one that resists desire. By the cynic, the sad, the fallen, Who had no strength for the strife, The world's highway is cumbered today; They make up the items of life. But the virtue that conquers passion, And the sorrow that hides in a smile, It is these that are worth the homage of earth, For we find them but once in a while. Ella Wheeler Wilcox.