--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Kenner, S. A. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 5 number: 12 published: 1902-10 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'S. A. Kenner, "The Play “Corianton”," *Improvement Era* 5, no. 12 (October 1902): 980–983.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0512unse 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: improvementera0512unse start_page: 980 end_page: 983 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1902-10) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0512unse 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. --- # The Play “Corianton” 978 IMPRU VEMENT ERA. tleness, there were times when he who was so infinitely merciful could also be infinitely just; he who was so infinitely compassionate could be infinitely severe. I give you an instance of it. He had struggled long and hard with those hypocrites, (he Pharisees, and finally the voice of justice and reproof, as it is to be found in God, speaks forth through Jesus Christ, and this is what he said; "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pre- tense make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damna- tion." That is not so gentle, is it? Listen again: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty. Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? .... Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel! Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo- crites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo- crites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beau- tiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all un- cleanness. TCven so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye L~e full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" And this from that gentle, compassionate man! The voice of JESUS CHRIST: THE REVELATION OF GOD. 979 God in its severity speaks through these tones, and bids us under- stand that it must be a terrible thing to fall under the displeasure of God. Think of the infinite difference between that sweet com- passion which he has for the penitent sinner, and this severe but just arraignment of those who persist in their sins! A warning to all men to beware of the justice of God, when once it shall be aroused My friends, this Jesus Christ is God manifested in the flesh, proved to be so from the scripture; the character of God is re- vealed in the wonderful life that Jesus, the Son of God, lived on earth; in it we see God in action; and from it we see the gentle- ness, the compassion, and also the justice and severity of God. jesus Christ is God; and he is also man; but I take no stock in those sectarian refinements which try to tell us about the humanity of Jesus being separate from the divinity of Jesus. He himself made no such distinctions. He was divine, spirit and body, and spirit and body was exalted to the throne of his Father, and sits there now with all the powers of the Godhead residing in him bodily, an immortal, glorified, exalted man! The express image and likeness of God the Father; for as the Son is, so is the Father. Yet when we announce to the world that we believe God to be an exalted man, we are told that we are blasphemers. But as long as the throne of Jesus Christ stands sure, so long as his immortal body of flesh and bones, glorified and everlasting, shall keep his that God place by the side of the Father, so long will the doctrine of the isan exalted man hold its place against the idle sophistries learned world. The doctrine is true. It cannot be unthroned. A truth is a solemn thing. Not the mockery of ages, not the lam- of the multitude, not pooning of the schoolmen, not the derision it will always remain the blasphemy of the world, can affect it; world, true. And this doctrine, announced by Joseph Smith to the man, that Jesus Christ is the revelation of that' God is an exaltad just like his Father, and that God to the world, and that he is brethren may become as he is, when they have those who are his a doctrine that will stand sure in his footsteps— that is walked For Jesus Christ was mani- and fast as the throne of God itself. He was the revelation of God to the world. fested in the flesh. He is God. He was and is an exalted man. THE PLAY "CORIANTON." BY S. A. KENNER. The prehistoric civilization of the American continents is a subject of profound interest, and no little research. Now and then a fragment, detached and disconnected, but still disclosing some little scrap of information, rewards the diligence of the archaeol- ogist, but is by no means satisfactory to him or to others. It gives no suggestion of its authorship, its meaning or its purpose; no key to its mystical tracings is provided; its words, if words they be, are in an unknown language, one that died long, long ago; and if any links designed to connect it with modern tongues were left for the use of those to follow, the links themselves have been effaced. This being the case, all discoveries would seem to mean but the addition of mystery to mystery, to enlarge, as it were, the field of speculation, instead of narrowing it to the limits of present day comprehension. However, the knowledge that those people lived, had forms of government, and were reasonably if not extensively enlightened, receives additional strength with each additional development; and the scientific world, baffled in its efforts to penetrate the cloud of mystery enveloping the subject, has plodded along with what it could pick up, nourishing its flagging hopes with the hope that sooner or later "something would turn up" by or through which more satisfactory conclusions could be had. In this attitude of enforced listlessness, it will be observed, while solutions or even clues were and are eagerly sought, nothing but science need apply; all agencies but thore which appeal to and are understood by the physical senses have been, and in some reduced measure are yet, strictly excluded. THE PLAY "CORIANTON." 981 While the learned men were guessing and expounding, keep- ing their wagon hitched to the materialistic star, and eschewing inspiration as well as superhuman agencies of whatever character, there arose, at the beginning of the second quarter of the last century, a youth "to fortune and to fame unknown," who, though not ignorant, was by no means educated. His name was Joseph Smith, and he resided in New York, near the town of Palmyra. He proclaimed a new dispensation of Providence to the people of the world, and, aided by agencies which even the skeptical may understand were not mortal, he found buried on a hillside some golden plates inscribed with hieroglyphics which were to him wholly incomprehensible. But he became invested with a new and comprehensive faculty of divination, so much so that the complete translation of the legends on the plates was only a mat- ter of manual exertion, and with its publication the missing link between the extinct races and the living ones of our continents was found. The boy's work was at first received with contempt- uous incredulity, then with cautious questioning, and, finally, with general disbelief; while he himself was first laughed at, then scorned, then mobbed, then plundered, then driven, and finally murdered. But his work remained, and its influence spread. Little by little, the barriers of incredulity were battered down with reason, justice and investigation entering to remain. As one unfolding after another, demonstrating the correctness of the book's predictions, came to pass, it became plainer and plainer, to those who were willing to hear and determine impartially, that its historical features must also be founded upon fact, the more so in that at no point and in no place has it conflicted with, but rather corroborated and explained, the developments of archaeology. And here do we find the foundation, the inspiration, the essence of the play "Corianton." To some it may seem a peculiar if not incongruous thing that the Book of Mormon should be made the source from which the materials for a dramatic production came. Yet why? History is and has been a most fruitful field for the dramatist, and many of fabric employ the plays which have fiction for the warp of the historical events for the woof. That it is a norel manner in which to bring forth characters and incidents long since passed