--- 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: 7 number: 2 published: 1903-12 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Be a Sunbeam", *Improvement Era* 7, no. 2 (December 1903): 102.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0702unse 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: improvementera0702unse start_page: 102 end_page: 102 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1903-12) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0702unse 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. --- # Be a Sunbeam 102 IMPROVEMENT ERA Christ himself said: "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul (spirit) but rather fear Him which is able : to destroy both soul (spirit) and body in hell." James says: "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." Yes; when we speak of death, it is the death of the body, not the spirit —a separation, a shuffling off this mortal coil. The Prophet Joseph was told by revelation that the spirit when separated from the body cannot receive a fulness of joy, but the spirit and body, when joined in the glorious resurrection, may re- ceive a fulness. So, no matter what mystery may envelop man's existence, both in this life and in the life to come —no matter how feeble his efforts in defining the characteristics of the spirit, yet we feel confident in saying with Martineau: "Yes! God and immortality —a sufficient basis for religion." And with Longfellow: "Life is real, life is earnest, And the grave is not its goal. Dust thou art to dust returnest Was not spoken of the soul" (spirit). BE A .SUNBEAM. Taking life too seriously is said to be an especially American failing. This may be true, but judging from appearances, it would seem to be world-wide, for, go where one may, he will find the pro- portion of serious, not to say anxious, faces ten to one as compared with the merry or happy ones. If "the outer is always the form or shadow of the inner," how many sad histories may be read in the faces of those we meet every day! The pity of it is, too, that the sadness is a self -woven garment, even as is the joy with which it might be replaced. Ruskin says, "Girls should be sunbeams, not only to members of their own circle, but to everybody with whom they come in contact. Every room they enter should be brighter for their presence." Why shouldn't all of us be sunbeams, boys as well as girls, all along the way from twenty-five years and under to eighty-five yea* s and over?