Editor’s Table: Home Building; Dr. Karl G. Maeser; Zion’s Teacher; Answers to Questions

EDITOR'S TABLE.

HOME-BUILDING.

BY THE SENIOR EDITOR.

A correspondent in the February number of the Era, under the title, "What About the Home?" touches a subject very near to my heart, and of great importance to the people and to the Church. Let me write a few words on this topic of home-building to our young men and women. The subject can only be touched in an Wrong impressions prevail about the matter, for article like this. nowadays young men and young women often have an idea that they must build a mansion before they wed. They must have all kinds of modern furniture, and modern improvements, in their mansion, before they can marry. Now, this idea prevails to almost an alarming extent, so much so that I apprehend many a young

man and young woman who ought to be married, and who would be fulfilling the law of God, and of their being, if they were married, are deferring this right until they may see a chance to fulfill this false desire for wealth. Now, I think that the old plan to marry for love is a very good one, even today. It is the height of folly for a young man without means, and depending upon his intellect, and his energy, and skill, and labor, for his living, to imagine that he must ape millionaires, in all his surroundings, before he is qualified to take a wife. The thing for such a one to do is to decide in his mind whether he is suited to the girl he loves, whether their

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dispositions are compatible, whether they can love each other; and do as Paul commanded, you shall love your wife, and the wife shall reverence the husband. If you can make up your mind that you can do this, and that you are suited to each other, for time and for eternity, and that you will become a unit in the bonds of holy wedlock, and then go and get married under the law of God, that God may join you together for eternity as well as for time, and then put your efforts and energies together, you are prepared to save your little means, and lay it up and build your home together and

live therein. Build your home together, out in the country, where there is not so much fashion, so many carriages and fine horses, Young men in the settleand livery outfits, and all such things. ments do not need this advice so much perhaps, as they do in Salt Lake City and in the other larger cities of the state. But the young men of the cities need this advice. Don't wait till you are as rich as your fathers before you get married. Don't make your marriage dependent upon your possessing a fortune, for if you marry for a fortune, if you get married because of the luxuries that are supposed to be in marriage, and that are supposed to be esseatial to married life, then when your fortunes fail, your love will perish and your union will be a most unhappy one. But it is not the material view of this question that is the most essential in building a home. A home, however luxuriant it may be, is not a home, in the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or of the Latter-day Saints, unless there dwells perfect confidence and perfect love between the husband and the wife. If the woman

is suspicious of the character of her husband, she will be jealous of him. If he has been or is" suspicious about the fidelity of his

wife, then there is misery and unhappiness; there can be no love; that is, no love exists such as should exist in the home, and a home is not a home where confusion reigns, where jealousy abides, where the spirit of hatred springs up occasionally between the parents. There can be no home there. There may be a hell, but not a home. Home is a place of order, a place of love, a place of union, and a place of rest, a place of absolute confidence, absolute trust one tovvards the other —where there is not the breath of suspicion of infidelity, on the part of the wife or on the part of her husband.

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respecting the other; but where the husband can bestow his love and depend upon the virtue and integrity of his wife, and where the woman has implicit confidence in the honor and manhood and virtue of her husband. That is what constitutes a home, and the only way you can build up a home, on these principles, is to impress the Gospel of Jesus Christ in your hearts, get the Spirit of God in your souls; and learn the law of life, as it has been revealed from the heavens in the latter days, and live by it. Thus you may build up for yourself a home to which all the joys and happiness of life will congregate, to which your children will flock to you in love

and peace, to dwell with you and seek the rest, the joy, the peace, the parental affection which should exist in the home, rather than to go out to other homes, and to other places, for the enjoyment that they ought to find with you. Build up your own homes; do not ask someone else to do it for you. Do not depend upon your rich father or upon the legacy of some rich relative. Do not look for these things. Be men, be women. Depend upon your own energies. Take the world as you find it, and cope with the difiiculties that you have to meet with.

Do this with the energies, with the intelligence, with the force of character, that you possess within yourselves, and ask no odds of any living creature on earth, nor in the heavens except the blessings of our God. Ask only for his blessing, and be sure that you ask for his, and that you get it, and your way will be opened, and you will be able to build up for yourself a home that will be indeed a home. However humble it may be, it will be the dwelling place of peace and joy that you may call your home. It is not brick walls, it is not ornaments, brussels carpets or plush carpets, it is not fine drapery, and that, which make a all

home. I know that, perhaps, there have been more aching hearts and sorrowing souls in these rich homes than you will find in the

dwellings of the people where they are lovingly united in the bonds of the new and everlasting covenant, and are looking for union not only in this life but throughout all eternity. Their children will be a crown of glory unto their home, and will be a foundation and nucleus of their kingdom which shall spread. It should be the ambition of young men and women to make

such homes. They are the cradles of undying progress; the nur-

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series of character, the strength of The Church, the state and nation.

DR. KARL G. MAESER.

In the early morning of Friday, February 16, Karl G. Maeser, the missionary and educator, suddenly and peacefully died, at his home in Salt Lake City, at the age of seventy-three years. In his death, the state loses one of its oldest and most enthusiastic educators, and The Church, one of its pillars of strength. Readers of the Era have an account, from his own pen, (Vol. 3, page 23) of how he became a "Mormon," and was baptized at Dresden, Saxony, October 14, 1855, by the late Apostle Franklin D. Richards; and of the wonderful manifestation of the gift of tongues which corroborated the sincere conviction of his soul, possessed to his dying day, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is of God and not of man. Dr. Maeser was born in Saxony, January 16, 1828, and came to Utah in the fall of 1860. Since his arrival here, as in his native land, he was constantly engaged in educational work; he taught first in the wards of Salt Lake City, and afterwards, as private tutor

in the school of President Brigham Young. The latter position led to his appointment as the organizer and first principal of the great Church educational institution, the Brigham Young Academy,which in turn led to his position as father and superintendent of the entire Church educational system of the Latter-day Saints, In addition to this labor, he was in recent years an ardent worker in the Sabbath schools of Zion, whose excellent discipline and splendid system are largely due to his able efiPorts. He was a natural disciplinarian and teacher, one who devoted his whole career to his calling. Thinking, planning, writing, teaching, he wrought therein up to and during the last day of his life on earth. He died in the harness, ajad his peaceful passing to the great beyond was as ideal as the story of his living. In life he

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was ever prepared to respond to calls to do good; and he stood quite as ready to answer the final summons of his Maker. He was a man of charming character, true as steel, warm as love; he possessed a big heart; thousands are the monograms of hope and encouragement that he has impressed upon the souls of young men and young women who came to him for counsel. With fatherly solicitude and with tender care, he gave to each the advice most needed. In all the rocky mountain region, from Mexico to Canada, from the coast to the plains, many hearts there are that beat in loving remembrance of Brother Maeser, that are full today in contemplation of the help that he has rendered. He was a missionary, a musician, a founder of the German mission paper Der Stern, a writer of some merit, a member of the State constitutional convention of Utah; and in other ways he faithfully, nobly, truly, always modestly, served his Church, his state and country; but the crowning labor of his life was his work as

teacher* The truth which he so tactfully, but with force, impressed upon the hearts of the children of his time, is the monument that shall perpetuate his memory, enshrouding it with living freshness in generations yet to come. With thousands of Latter-day Saints in all the world, we place a rose upon his bier, a crown of flowers upon his brow, and sympathize with the childeren of the Saints who must hereafter forever miss his coming.

ZION'S TEACHER.

Did Pestalozzi's mantle fall, When he to higher realms aspired; Or had a still diviner call Our Maeser's heart with zeal inspired?

From youth to age, his daily toil. To make men better, seemed to be, With wisdom's lance meet every foil, With knowledge make men great and free.

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Others shall reap where he has sown, And gather hosts of human sheaves; And youth, now unto manhood grown. Shall love the name for whom he grieves.

But in a more exalted sphere, His work has now commenced anew; 'Tis not for us to morn him here.

With life's great labor still in view. J. H. Ward.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

Confeffing the Aaronic Priesthood.

A subscriber submits this question: In ordaining a person to the office of a Deacon, should the words be used: We confer upon you the Aaronic Priesthood? Answer: —See section 107, Book of Doctrine and Covenants, verse 1, —There are, in the Church, two Priesthoods, namely the Melchisedek, and Aaronic, including the Levitical Priesthood. Verses 5 and 6 — "All other authorities or offices in the Church are appendages to this (the Melchisedek) Priesthood." — Verse 7 "The office of an elder comes under the Priesthood of Melchisedek." — Verse 21 "Of necessity there are presidents, or presiding offices, growing out of, or appointed of, or from among those who are ordained to the several offices in these two Priesthoods."

The revelation clearly points out that the Priesthood is a general authority or qualification, with certain offices or authorities appended thereto. Consequently the giving of the Priesthood should precede and accompany ordination to office, unless it be possessed by previous bestowal and ordination. Surely a man cannot possess an appendage to the Priesthood without possessing the Priesthood itself, which he cannot obtain unless it be authoritatively conferred upon him.

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Take, for instance, the office of a Deacon, to which "subscriber" refers; the person ordained should have the Aaronic Priesthood conferred upon him in connection with his ordination. He cannot receive a portion or fragment of the Aaronic Priesthood, because that would be acting on the idea that either or both of the Priesthoods were subject to sub-division, which is contray to the revelation. In ordaining those who have not yet received the Aaronic Priesthood, to any office therein, the words of John the Baptist to Joseph Smith, Jr., and Oliver Cowdery, would be appropriate to immediately precede the act of ordination. They are: "Upon you my fellow servants" (servant,) "in the name of Messiah, I confer the Priesthood of Aaron." Of course it would not necessarily follow that the exact words should be used, but the language should be consistent with the act of conferring the Aaronic Priesthood.

The Kingdom of God. Explain this passage in Note 10, Lesson 14. Manual, taken from the "History of Joseph Smith:" "Some say the kingdom of God was not set up until the day of Pentecost, and that John did not preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; butI say, in the name of the

Lord, that the kingdom of God was set up on earth from the days of Adam to the present time." * * *

Some doubts have arisen on the meaning of this passage from the fact that the Latter-day Saints believe that there was an absolute apostasy from the primitive Church, and that divine authority was not again restored until it was done by the direct revelation of God to the Prophet Joseph Smith. The whole question hinges on the meaning of "the Kingdom of God," as used in the quoted passage. From the subsequent remarks, in the same note, it is evident that it does not mean The Church, as a continual organization, but rather includes separate oracles of God who have existed from time to time from the days of Adam until now. The history continues:

What constitutes the kingdom of God? Where there is a Prophet, a Priest, or a righteous man unto whom God gives his oracles, there is