---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - James Nielsen
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 7
number: 9
published: 1904-07
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'James Nielsen, "To Man," *Improvement Era* 7, no. 9 (July 1904): 653.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0709unse
  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: improvementera0709unse
start_page: 653
end_page: 653
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1904-07)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0709unse
  publication_year: 1904
  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 1904, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# To Man

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CONVERTED BY SIGNS.                             653

is   not at all improbable that each of these legends is the result of
what was at first considered harmless exaggeration.              The Latter-
day Saint is privileged to see many marvelous manifestations that
to the world are truly miraculous.           As these sacred things are
talked about and pass from mouth to mouth, there          is, among too

many of us, a tendency to make the tale as large as possible, and if
this practice     were continued, there would be constantly arising
stories that would have to be corrected, traditions that would have
to be disavowed.       It is sufficiently easy,   even under the most fav-
orable conditions, for the Saint to lapse into the errors and evils
of the world, and it is devoutly to be hoped that a tendency to ex-
aggeration will not lead to a copying of the world by turning spe-
cial blessings into mere tradition,      and making them the subject of
idle gossip.     The manifestations which are enjoyed by the people
of God are the results of faith and obedience, and are not given to
make converts, and they can never be considered with the tradi-
tion, innocent though they may be, by which           the churches of the
world have too often been built up.

                                  TO MAN.
                         {For the Improvement Era.)

               Planted as thou art, amidst a moving universe,
                 Catch thou the tread, and linger not behind!
               List to the echoes, as the Gods converse,
                 Thy soul shall be attuned; so, too, thy mind.
               Stretch forth thine hands, (permit, we call them five).
                 Gather with them all.    To squander? Nay, to hold
               And crown thy inner brow with truth to live.
                 Then weave them into garments pure as gold.
               And as thy glorious thoughts, clothed as a dream.
                 Rush on amid the current from above,
               Let the uncomely traits be drowned beneath the stream,
                 Thy soul be wrapped in swaddling clothes of love.
                                                           James Nielsen.