Editor’s Table: The Law of Recompense

EDITOR'S
TABLE. THE LAW OF RECOMPENSE. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. — Rom. vi: 28. Young people naturally seek pleasure and amusement, and it is right that they should have them. But their recreation should not overstep the bounds of propriety, nor partake of the riotous. Neither should they permit it to go to such extremes that the end thereof is sin or sorrow. In the eternal adjustment of affairs, there will be a day of reckoning when the uttermost farthing will be required — when the awards will be distributed, and each man will receive his earnings, according as he has acted in the right or the wrong, and when his just dues will be meted out to him. It is not good reason for young men to argue that a riotous life will be rewarded in the end, when repentance comes, with the same rich blessings that a prudent course will insure. Such argu- ment is based on a false conception of the laws of God. "There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated; and when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated." So declares the prophet, and his words are true. The principle may be reversed, I think, and it may be safely said that if the obtaining of blessings is based upon law, there is also law that governs the reception of condemnation. And as God has given man his free agency, it is left with him to make a selection of the laws which he chooses to obey. As long, then, as the drunkard, the gambler and card-player, the evil-doer, the reveler in vice, chooses to continue in his course, he will reap the eondemnation that is the inevitable result of these evils; and only

226 IMPROVEMENT ERA. when he repents, and sets his heart on better laws will the rewards of such better laws begin to reach him. But his repentance will only save him as far as the future is concerned. He has had to suffer for his past misdeeds in full measure — and will have to suf- fer for them until the law is satisfied, be the period of long or short duration. Much of what is called amusement and pleasure in this life is simply a prodigal waste of time and means, resulting in the formation of dangerous and expensive habits, or evil and injurious tastes, which are apt to leave a mark upon the character forever. Whatever may be said of the value of a repentant sin- ner as an example or pattern, it is still more blessed to have lived so that one has no serious evils to repent of. I always think the boy who sows no wild oats, is just a little better than one who has a large field of them to harvest, even if the latter does it with a repentant heart in the sweat of his sober brow. The holy book gives us to understand that Jesus declared that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance; but that does not intimate that the sinner has more joy than the ninety and nine who were just, and hence needed not to repent. Some liave an idea that the greater their sins, the greater the manifest mercy of God in their forgiveness, when they do turn to him. This thought, based on the scriptures, was not given to encourage sin- fulness, but rather to encourage hope to turn from sin. "What shall we say then?" says Paul, "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid." Certainly, the transgressor's reward will not be as great nor as sure, nor can it be the same, as theirs who have not so seriously broken the law. Let me impress it upon you that one never can hold quite the same relation to a law of God which one has transgressed, as if one had lived in conformity with its requirements. It is unreason- able to expect it; and contrary to the laws of nature to conclude that you can. If a person has determined that sin can easily be wiped out, and hence, that he will enjoy unlawful pleasures in youth, repenting in later life with an idea in his mind that repent- ance will blot out completely the results of his sin and debauch- ery, and place him on a level with his fellow who has kept in virtue the commandments, from the beginning — time will wake

EDITOR'S TABLE. 227 liim up to his serious and great mistake. He may and will be for- given, if he repent; the blood of Christ will make him free, and will wash him clean, thoagh his sins be as scarlet; but all this will not return to him any loss sustained, nor place him on an equal footing with his neighbor who has kept the commandments of the better law. Nor will it place him in the position where he would have been, had he not committed wrong. He has lost something which can never be regained, notwithstanding the perfection, the loving mercy, the kindness and forgiveness, of the Lord God. Have we not a striking example in the prodigal son? Here was a young man who tired of the conventional, the hum-drum of the farm apd home, and who demanded his portion of his father's goods. When he received it, he took his journey into a far coun- try, and there wasted his substance in riotous living. Having spent it all, a famine arose in the land, and he began to be in want. He then joined himself to a citizen who sent him into the fields to feed swine. "And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat; and no man gave unto him." It was then he bethought him.self of his condition; of his father's servants who had bread to spare, while he was about to perish v/ith hunger. Then it was that he came to himself, repented, and said, '1 will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him. Father I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hand servants." Then he came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father, filled with parental love, saw him, and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck, and kissed him. Then again the son, full of repentance, declared his unworthiness, and his sin. Still, the father, full of love, mercy and parental feeling, ordered the best robe and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; "and," said he to the servants, "bring hither the fatted calf and kill it; and let us eat and be merry: for this my son was dead and is alive again: he was lost and is found." There was merry-making to such an extent, that the elder son, the boy who had never broken his father's commandments, who was in the field, heard it, with the music and the dancing, as he approached, and called a servant to know what these things meant.
He was told that his brother had returned, and that be-

228 IMPROVEMENT ERA. cause father had received him safe and sound, the fatted calf had been killed in his honor. This so angered him, that he would not go in, and so his father came out and entreated him. "And he answering, said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: but as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf." It was then that the father gave answer in words that have come down as a comfort to the faithful for all time: "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found." The prodigal was forgiven, was received with joy and merry- making, but that was all, and the whole of it. He had no portion in the estate; while the boy who had ever remained faithful was equal with his father in all that they possessed, and he was ever with the father. And, while there were tears of joy at the prodigal's return, while there were feasting and merry-making, while a loving father fell upon his neck and kissed him, and he was given a reception in their hearts and home, there was no thought of restoring that which was lost. He must begin over again, and, if his repentance were sincere, labor for years to regain his former place, and means, and standing. And there is a question whether it could ever be said to him, by his merciful, kind, loving, forgiving father, as was said to the faithful boy: "All that I have is thine." Joseph F. Smith. Employes of railroads are more and more required to be rigidly temperate, and it is only a matter of time when no person who drinks liquor will be given employment thereon. New rule books of the roads entering Chicago, without a single exception, contain this statement: "The use of intoxicants by employes while on duty is prohibited. Their habitual use, or the frequenting of places where they are sold, is suffi- cient cause for dismissal." The first part is old, the second new. It is not now regarded as enough that a railroad man refrain from drink while on duty; he must also keep out of temptation when off duty.