--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 6 number: 7 published: 1903-05 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Talks to Young Men: VII—Manners, II," *Improvement Era* 6, no. 7 (May 1903): 511–515.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0607unse 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: improvementera0607unse start_page: 511 end_page: 515 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1903-05) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0607unse publication_year: 1903 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 1903, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Talks to Young Men: VII—Manners, II TALKS TO YOUNG MEN, VII— MANNERS. II. Next to the home is the church, and there is such a thing as manners. Churches there are where such a state- church ment would have to be strongly attested. Men have stood up before audiences and waited for long periods, unwilling to proceed until a spirit of peace was felt. Speakers have also had to stop in the course of an address, and refuse to proceed, unless order be maintained. These are humiliating confessions to make, but candor compels. We deplore most deeply the necessity for such statements, and would not put them in public print, were they not lamentably true. But there is a specific remedy at hand. There are two classes of individuals responsible for this prevalent evil. First, the parents are to be censured for allowing their children to go to church alone. Children collect in little curious, talkative groups, and get as far from the pulpit and their parents as they can, so that the social chat shall not be interrupted. Now, if parents sat with their children, they would have them under immediate control. One of the most beautiful customs of the high-minded British people, is that it is common to see father and mother with the entire family, be they few or many, going to religious services together, and with becoming piety enter the sanctified place, and remain in beautiful silence throughout the service. That is one thing that makes religion dignified and admirable. We don't pay enough attention to church manners. We carry too much physical freedom both of tongue and body into holy places. Reform in this respect need not make us long-faced 512 IMPROVEMENT ERA. and sanctimonious. We would almost prefer to remain as we are than to allow the pendulum of our conduct to swing to the other extreme. But with a glad countenance, and a joyous heart, let us enter holy places and let our presence add to their sanctity. "God attributes to no place sanctity, save it be thither brought by men who there frequent." The other class responsible for this evil among us, is those who preside over the meetings. Be they bishops or elders, when they hold the keys of presidency, it is a stewardship for which they are accountable to God. They are not presiding over their own but over the Lord's heritage. And how would he preside? Would he permit confusion and disorder? When such a spirit entered heaven, there was war, and Satan and his discordant host were cast out. By this strong comparison is not meant that such vigorous methods need often be employed, (though we doubt not their necessity in extreme cases) but the man who presides in a meeting holds the keys, under God, and he should be the dominant force of the assembly, and impart to it the spirit by which the occasion^'shall be characterized. Therefore, the supreme responsi- bility rests with him. If he palliates disorder, he becomes indi- rectly responsible for it. We suggest to him, as his most potent weapon in warding off and subduing disorders in church, the majesty of silence. Don't be boisterous, and outdo the offender, but in patience, and meekness look confusion in the face, until it blushes into submission in a superior presence. Under all speech that is good for anything, there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity, speech is shallow as Time. — Carlyle. There is such a thing as business manners. When there was only one store in the village, the proprietor of that imperialistic enterprise could treat the suffering public just about as he pleased, but when neighbor Jones put a counter in his front room, and a few bars of soap in his window, how amazingly quick did the pioneer merchant begin to spruce up within and without! Why, he actually smiled at every customer that entered his door, and was off his seat before you got within a rod of his establishment, s TALKS TO YOUNG MEN. 513 anxious was he to serve you. Now, young men, competition is here to stay, and, "The longest pole knocks the persimmons." Business manners not only involve honor and push, and a thousand other things, but it includes personal cleanliness, neatness of appearance, and gentleraanliness in its broadest and highest sense. It requires education both of hand and head, and it is a priceless embellishment to find in a,business man a heart. That is a pearl of great price. And there is no better place for it than , in a business man's heart. Once a gruff fellow entered a half home and half shop to purchase some custard tarts, which he saw in the window. When the woman came to wait on him, her appearance changed his desire for the tarts. She saw the waning of his appetite, and assured the hungry fellow that they were good, for, said she, "I made 'em . myself." "That's just the reason I don't want 'em," he said, as he passed out of the door. That's the story of a large percent of small failures in busi- ness life. Young men of good manners, endowed with tact, as well as push and grit, (sometimes) and integrity, are always in demand. They are the forces that have lifted the world's commer- cial center across the Atlantic ocean during the past decade. While the other fellows of uncouth and slovenly habits, with empty heads, and pockets, too, though they may wear patent leather shoes and comb their glossy locks smoothly over their brows and temples are walking the streets, smoking dirty cigarettes, and complaining of hard times, and how unkindly the cruel world treats them. They are the "Johnny's" of society, and the hope for the race lies in the law of the "survival of the fittest." The first thing to be taught good manners is the tongue. That little thing has caused nearly all the troubles that have befallen us poor mortals. Few men have spoken so strongly of the tireless little mischief-maker as the Apostle James, and he thought it not beneath his when writing his epistle to the practical attention, saints. Says he: "And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity * * * For every kind of beasts and of birds, and of serpents, and of things ia the sea, is tamed, but the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." Our readers are admonished to teach these words to others, should they not 514 IMPROVEMENT ERA. feel the need of applying them in their own lives. Read Carleton'a "First Settler's Story," if you want a lasting lesson on- allowing the tongue to speak words of bitterness and falsity. He concludes his pathetic story with these solemn words: Boys flying kites haul in their white winged birds; You can't do that when you're flying words. Careful with fire, is good advice, we know, But carejul with words is ten times doubly so. Thoughts unexpressed, may sometimes fall back dead; But God himselj can't kill them when they're said! In conclusion, let us remind the young men that manners and politeness are not externals. They, if not both, shoald rather be internal. There are in the world (and we are not out of the world now) many who have gentle and winning ways, and on the sur- face appear to be real gentlemen; and yet, their real interior does but poorly comport to their outward manner. Within they are corrupt like the Pharisees of old, — whited sepulchers, gar- nished and embellished without, but within full of corruption, and dead men's bones. These are the gentle appearing young men whose glare sometimes attracts our moth-like maidens, and leads them to sorrow and misery. A gentleman must be pure and innocent. Manners and urbanity consist, for the most part, in the culture of the heart, and the development of inward virtues far more -than outward polish. Ten thousand times we prefer to see the rugged-even harsh — exterior, with the soundness and true manhood within, if it came to a choice between the two. But we hold, their need be no division of culture, it should be through and through, and this type of man would we have our young men endeavor to typify. His life was gentle, And the elements so mixed up in him That Nature might stand up and say to all the world. This was a man. "His strength was of the strength of ten, because his heart was pure." So that, to be a gentleman means to be a true man, full of TALKS TO YOUNG MEN. 515 tenderness and vitality at the same time. And this kind of man each can make of himself if he will. No other person can do it for you, young man, the task was imposed upon you by the endow- ment with free agency which Deity stamped upon your soul back in the aeons of eternity. Now you are called upon to rise to the occasion, and make of yourself a man whom, first, your parents shall be proud to own, then your people and your God. If you are a true Latter-day Saint, you must be a real gentleman. Pygmies are pygmies still, though on Alps; And pyramids are pyramids in vales. Each man makes his own stature, builds himselj; Virtue alone outbuilds the Pyramids; Her monuments shall last when Egyptsfall." AN HONEST TRADE WELL MASTERED. There is an unfortunate tendency among young men to abso- lutely disregard places of employment where shirt cuffs and pressed trousers would be out of place, yet many brilliant suc- cesses and large fortunes have been founded on an honest trade, well mastered. During the course of a strike in Philadelphia re- cently itcama out that many of the skilled workmen earned as much as $1.08 an hour, and could earn as much a~ fifty dollars a week without over-exerting themselves. A young man who has a trade at his fingers' end may feel secure. His trade is always a valuable asset. Such a man will not lose his position for a trifle, or through the whim of an employer, nor does he have to enter into competition with all the riffraff of the labor market. Senator Smoot said at the recent Annual Conference that the highest positions of responsibility, and those involving skilled labor, had few applicants, but if one advertised for men at $1.50 per day, hundreds would apply. Boys, prepare yourselves to stand out from the crowd. Learn to do someth^'ng well.