---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Smith, Joseph F.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 5
number: 8
published: 1902-06
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Joseph F. Smith, "True Riches," *Improvement Era* 5, no. 8 (June 1902): 573.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0508unse
  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: improvementera0508unse
start_page: 573
end_page: 573
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1902-06)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0508unse
  publication_year: 1902
  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 1902, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# True Riches

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HISTORY OF THE PROPHET JOSEPH.                         573

keeper, whose wife  came with him, and brought us a present of
some delicate eatables. Such manifestations of kindness as these
were shown us from day to day, during our continuance in the
place.  And they were duly appreciated, for we had experienced
the opposite so severely, that the least show of good feeling gave
rise to the liveliest sensations of gratitude.
     Having settled ourselves    in     this   place, we established the
practice of spending the evenings in singing and praying.           The
neighbors soon became aware of        this,   and it caused our house to
become a place of evening resort, for some dozen or twenty per-
sons.    One evening, soon after we commenced singing, a couple of
little boys came in, and one of them, stepping softly up to Samuel,

whispered, "Mr. Smith, won't you pray pretty soon? Our mother
said, we must be home by eight o'clock, and we would like to hear

you pray before we go."
     Samuel told them that prayer should' be attended to imme-
diately.   Accordingly, when   we had finished the hymn, which we
were then singing, we closed the evening services with prayer, in
order that the little boys might be gratified. After this, they were
never absent during our evening devotions while we remained in
the neighborood.
                          (To be Continued.)




                           TRUE RICHES.

     What are true riches?     The love of your family, and the con-
fidence of friends and neighbors; faith in God and obedience to his
commandments,      —not money, not wealth.          I   knew a man who
lived and died in constant misery because of a fear which        he har-
bored that his accumulations might be lost, and that he might die
in poverty and have no money left for his children.          The poorest
Saint in the Church, who possesses loved ones following in the simple
path of the Master, and who enjoys the spirit of the gospel, there-
by, reading life's real meaning, is incomparably wealthier.      He has
the true riches.  Not that money is not desirable; but there are
things better than money.                  Joseph F. Smith.