--- 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: 7 number: 2 published: 1903-12 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Joseph F. Smith, "Editors’ Table—Worship in the Home", *Improvement Era* 7, no. 2 (December 1903): 135–137.' 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: 135 end_page: 137 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. --- # Editors’ Table—Worship in the Home EDITOR'S TABLE. WORSHIP IN THE HOME. While we have many of the best children and young people on the earth, among the Latter-day Saints, there can be no denying the fact that we have some among us that are anything but what the children of Latter-day Saints should be. Some youths there are in our settlements and wards who have contracted the habit of swear- ing; who smoke miserable cigarettes, and who idle away their time who grow up without natural af- in frivolity or malicious mischief, fection for their parents and for sacred things, and who are posi- tively repulsive in their speech and actions. We have too many boys and girls who jest, and utter slighting remarks about the bishops and other men in authority; who are without natural affec- tion and reverence for the things of God, disobedient to their par- ents, "heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." They loaf about the country stores, gather on the street corners, annoy meeting-goers, congregate about the grog-shop and drug stores, create trouble in places where respectable people are seeking legitimate amusement; engage in braggadocio, fights, idle and vicious language, act "smart," and become a terror to decent people generally. One cannot induce them to attend religious ser- vice, nor Sunday school, nor Improvement meetings, or if they go, it is to disturb and annoy. They will not take part in the lessons or service, and only jest and leer at everything sacred and holy. Now why should such characters grow up in the midst of the Saints? I say it is due to the infidelity, indifference and neglect of parents. They certainly do not live in conformity with the Gospel which we have embraced, for in that case the result with their children would be widely different. Or, if they believe the precepts of the Gospel, they certainly have neglected to practice and teach the young people these things, which is a proof in itself that they have miserably failed in obeying one of its vital teachings. Children 136 IMPROVEMENT ERA. cannot learn the significance, gather the import, and see the value, of the Gospel without being diligently taught in early years; they require, also, to be made to obey the truth by diligent training and discipline in the home. They must not be left to themselves. And again, it is not enough that parents be diligent in teaching the truth: they must see that their counsel and precepts are obeyed and practiced, so that their children may find benefit in what they themselves teach. If young men and boys persist in staying out on the streets, let the parents see that they are brought into the house, and that they are not permitted to roam with the riff-raff at all hours of the night, in all kinds of company, at all kinds of mis- chief. It is our business to know where our children are, and to have them under control. And then again, parents must be ex- emplary before their children, and also teach, train and discipline them. The Lord has commanded parents that inasmuch as they have "children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands when eight years old the sin be upon the heads of the parents; for this shall be a law unto the inhabitants of Zion, or in any of her stakes which are or- ganized; and their children shall be baptized for the remission of their sins when eight years old, and receive the laying on of the hands, and they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord." young people were taught these things in the spirit If the thereof, and were induced by example and proper family govern- ment, in love, to practice them, no complaint would need be made about neglect of duty, and hoodlumism. But this cannot be done unless parents themselves are exemplary, and this, evidently, they are not always. There are idlers among them, also; they are not seeking "earnestly the riches of eternity, but their eyes are full of greediness;" they spend their time and thoughts upon material things. They do not pray; they are worldly in mind, in habits and actions. The incorrigibility of the children is due to their care- lessness, and some day there will be a wakening, and parents will realize the fearful, awful fact, that the sins of their children are resting upon their heads. EDITORS TABLE. 137 I wish my voice could be heard in every family in Zion. Lov- ingly, and yet as firmly as if my soul's salvation depended upon it, I would repeat to every father and mother, the words of the Lord to Zion: ''These things ought not to be; and must be done away from among them; * * * * and a commandment I give unto them, that he that observeth not his prayers before the Lord in the season thereof, let him be had in remembrance before the judge of my people. These sayings are true and faithful; therefore trans- gress them not, neither take therefrom." Are you guilty of neglecting your prayers? Have you failed by word, precept, and example in teaching your children, in love and with abiding interest, to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord? Have you neglected to teach them the doctrine of re- pentance and faith in the living God? And of baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands? Are your child- ren growing up in wickedness, while you are sitting idly by, rock- ing yourself to sleep with the thought that the Sunday schools, Mutual Improvement associations, and other organizations and workers will look after the spiritual welfare and moral ethics of your children? If you are guilty, repent; let the idols of your greediness be shattered; smite your bosom with your hands, and fall in humility before God, and implore his forgiveness. Change your course, look after your children, feed them the spiritual bread of life, and let the love of God abide in your heart to the complete exclusion of worldliness! We have in the Gospel the truth. If that is the case, and I bear my testimony that so it is, then it is worth our every effort to understand the truth, each for himself, and to impart it in spirit and practice to our children. Far too many risk their children's spiritual guidance to chance, or to others rather than to them- selves, and think that organizations suffice for religious training. Our temporal bodies would soon become emaciated, if we fed them only once a week, or twice, as some of us are in the habit of feed- ing our spirtual and religious bodies. Our material concerns would be we looked after them only two hours a week, as less thriving, if some people seem to do with their spiritual affairs, especially if we in addition contented ourselves, as some do in religious matters, to let others look after them.