--- 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: 11 published: 1903-09 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. XI—Your Own Forever", *Improvement Era* 6, no. 11 (September 1903): 845–849.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0611unse 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: improvementera0611unse start_page: 845 end_page: 849 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1903-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0611unse 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. XI—Your Own Forever GEORGE D. PYPER. BY EDWARD H. ANDERSON. George D. Pyper, of whom we present a good portait in this number of the Era, was appointed general secretary of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations in October, 1890, in which capacity he continued to act until the appointment of Thomas Hull, the present incumbent, in 1896. He has also served as secretary of the First Council of Seventy, and is at present socretary and a member of the General Sunday School Union Board. The Juvenile Instructor, organ of the Sunday Schools, is now prospering under his management. The Salt Lake Theatre is also in his care, he having been business manager of that insti- tution since 1898. He assisted Drs. M. H. Hardy and Geo. H. Brim- hall in the publication of the first Manual for the M. I. A.; and was appointed a member of the committee on address and recommenda- tions for future policy of the M. I. A., which resulted in the single lesson Manual. Elder George Dollinger Pyper is the son of the late Bishop Alexander C. Pyper and Christiana Dollinger, and was born in Salt Lake City, November 21, 1860. At the age of eight years, he was baptized, shortly thereafter officiating as a deacon, and was later ordained an elder, in 1883. He married Emmaretta S. Whitney in the same year. Since his early youth he has taken an active part in public life, civilly, in a business capacity, and religiously. In the auxiliary associations of the Church, he has particularly taken great interest, being an active and energetic Sunday School worker, as well a3 a member and worker in Mutual Improvement associations. In 1896, he was called to fill a special mission in the United States, in company with Elder Brigham H. Roberts, 844 IMPROVEMENT ERA. traveling extensively in the large cities of the Eastern States, ful- filling this mission honorably, especially rendering valuable service in singing. He began his career as a boy in the silk industry, working successfully in this vocation under the direction of his father, who was one of the first to demonstrate the possibility of successfully raising silk in Utah. From 1875 to 1882, he was clerk in the police court, having previously for some time been in the employ of Z. C. M. I. In 1884, he was elected a justice of the peace, and it was while he held this office that he found time to take a course of study in the University of Deseret, now Utah. From 1886 to 1890, he held an office of alderman and police judge in Salt Lake City. He was the manager of the Contributor magazine in 1890-1. He was also assistant secretary and later secretary of the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society, taking part while he held this office in the management of several successful territorial fairs; and when, in 1893, Utah exhibited at the World's Fair, at Chicago, he was chosen by the D. A. and M. Society to take charge of a portion of the territorial exhibit, which he did, remaining in Chicago until the close of the exposition. As special commissioner for the Tennessee Centennial Exhibition, in 1897, he prepared a very creditable state display for Utah, spending eight months at Nash- ville, Tennessee. In a musical line, Elder Pyper is one of the sweet singers of Zion, having taken a prominent part in musical affairs in Utah for the past twenty-five years, his services and a great deal of his time having always been given to the public gratuitously. He has sung at upwards of one thousand funerals of members of the Church, be- sides visiting many of the surrounding stakes of Zion, where the Saints have rejoiced in his song. In addition, he has taken part in some twenty operas, and, in his capacity as manager of the Salt Lake Theatre, has taken great interest in providing legitimate amusement for the public of Salt Lake City. He is a young man of energy and ability; a good worker, zealous, enthusiastic, and a man whose character the young people need have no hesitancy in emulating. TALKS TO THE YOUNG MEN. XI— YOUR OWN FOREVER. Each one dwells in the heaven or hell of his own making. —Markham. It was Edwin Markham, too, who gave a splendid illustration of how we build for ourselves, when we think we are building for others: But there is flying through the world the story of another builder a foolish eye-servant, a poor rogue. He and his little ones were wretched and roofless, whereupon a certain good Samaritan said, in his heart, I will surprise this man with the gift of a comfortable home. So without telling his purpose, he hired the builder at fair wages to build a house on a sunny hill, and then he went on business to a far city. The builder was left at work with no watchman but his own honor. man. I can skimp the ma- "Ha!'' said he to his heart, "I can cheat this terial and scamp the work." So he went on spinning out the time, put- ting in poor service, poor nails, poor timbers. When the Samaritan returned, the builder said: "That is a fine house I built you on the hill." "Good," was the reply; "go, move your Here is the deed." folks into it at once, for the house is yours. The man was thunderstruck. He saw that, instead of cheating his friend for a year, he had been industriously cheating himself. "If I had only known it was my own house 1 was building!" he kept mut- tering to himself. But in a deep sense, we are always building our own houses. God is the good Samaritan. Man is the builder. The house to be built, man's own character. But man often says to himself, I can slight this character-building, and no one will be the wiser, while I can gain pecuniary advantage thereby. But the day will come, young man, when the Master of our building will appear 846 IMPROVEMENT ERA. and will present us with the structure that we have erected, de- claring, "It is yours forever." We will be compelled to take it, and if our acts and labors in building have not been honest, we shall discover that we have been cheating ourselves, and not the Master. We can never get away from ourselves, and however we build, we must inhabit. That is worth remembering. Do we wish to dwell in a house of idleness, fear, lies, dishonor, impatience, unkindness? or would we rather reside in a structure of work, courage, self-control, duty, truthfulness, honor, patience, and love of God and fellow men? It is a choice for us to make. The latter giveth a taste of heaven, the first savoreth of the way to hell. Our character is our house; we must build it on our honor, and in it we must dwell forever. Is it worth while, then, to cheat in its building? ''Character is the force behind thought, speech, deed; the strange region out of which all other things proceed, and is known perfectly only to God." But what is character? you ask. Emerson said that it ia "moral order seen through the medium of an individual nature;" and Smiles, who wrote a good book on the subject which every young man would do well to read, said that "character is one of the greatest motive powers in the world." I wish to say that character is what you yourself are secretly in your inmost, hidden soul. It is there we must look for character. It is the truth about you written upon your personality— the essential fact con- cerning you. My character is not what I may want you to think of me, nor what you may think of me; nor is it the appearance that I may endeavor to keep up before the world, or my family, or friends, but what I am myself, in the actual facts of my being. Character is not always manifest in words, nor in occasional deeds. There are very wicked men who may do things now and then, and utter occasional speech, that appear perfectly saintly; and, on the other hand, there are Saints of God who have been heard to say things now and then that are far from saintly. And so you can discover a man's character only when you have TALKS TO YOUNG MEN. 847 become familiar with his temper, tone, and spirit. Character is that hidden feeling in the soul which underlies and prompts the thoughts and actions of our lives as a whole. Now if. any man have not the Spirit oj Christ, he is none of his. —Rom. 8: 9. Now, to find an example of the highest character, we look to the life of Jesus Christ, in whom we trust. If a man wishes to build a noble character for himself, let him study the life of Jesus to find the principles that lie at the root of it. Of course, his life was governed by the one word love, which covers all; but how was that universal love expressed in him? Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy? — Proverbs. He was full of sympathy for his fellow men. That is a good basis upon which to build character. Not s mpathy that sorrows only with the sorrowful, but which rejoices also with those who rejoice- Did you ever notice that it is easier to weep with the weeping, than it is to be happy with the successful and those who are glad? Men are so prone to envy the prosperous, and it takes a man and a woman of great heart to rejoice with a neighbor or friend who is getting on a little faster than they are themselves. But the sympathy underlying the character of Christ is the power of "weeping with those who weep, rejoicing with those who rejoice." He could lift himself out of his own immediate self, and, with a power made effective through strength of soul, live and feel in the circle of others' personality. With the doctors in the temple, he was a master of philosophy; with the children, he was a child; with the sick, a physician; with the multitude, a sympathizer with the lowliest; with mothers, a man with a mother's heart; and with officers and leaders, a man of authority and strength. With allwith whom he came in contact, he entered into their pain, their joy, their sorrow, their shadow and their sunshine, and he gave orders to men as one who received them from above. "Whose armor is his honest thought, And simple truth his utmost skill." Closely connected with his sympathy, or perhaps lying at its