---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Ward, J. H.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 8
number: 1
published: 1904-11
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'J. H. Ward, "The Great Question: A Poem," *Improvement Era* 8, no. 1 (November 1904): 35.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0801unse
  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: improvementera0801unse
start_page: 35
end_page: 35
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1904-11)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0801unse
  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.
---

# The Great Question: A Poem

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LOOKING BACK.                             35

to wiltdown and think themselves paupers. If you have health,
strength, youth and intellect, at
                                command, you are in possession
of the most valuable earthly blessings possessed by man. They
are blessings that         scores of people would willingly pay you       a
million dollars for, if      you could deliver the goods.     Fortunately,
this kind of wealth cannot be delivered, if sold: and if you properly
use it, every earthly comfort is within your reach. Don't be afraid
of working yourself to death. "Rust consumes faster than labor
wears."     If    hard work of head and hands were         killiog, I should

have been dead twenty five or thirty years ago, instead of now
being quite aman in my eighty-third year.
     Young man, husband your present wealth of physical, mental,
and moral strength; don't destroy nor waste them by smoking,
chewing, drinking, gambling, idleness or other dissipations. To
gratify these evil habits will consume your time, health, strength
of body and of mind, and your acquired wealth.             When you gratify them long enough, you will          then, in truth, be a self-made pauper, of no value to yourself or to the world.
   Paauilo,      Hawaii.

                           THE GREAT QUESTION.
              Is it true that I   am a sojourner here.
              That this life's a prelude to a happier sphere?
              Then tell me,    Father, from whence am I come,
              And why am I here, and where is my home?
              Are you watching the work you have giv'n me to do?
              And, when it is done, will I come back to you?
              The more earnest my toil, will it sooner be done.
              Enter into my rest, and the victory won?

              Could we understand what the future life is.
              Perhaps we would not be contented with this.
              Our hearts would be lured by the rapturous view.
              And we'd long to go hence, if we only knew.
              As wanderers here, we oft walk alone.
              But there, over there, we shall know as we're known.
              Evolution's a law that is stamped on the soul,
              And the good will progress while the ages shall roll.
                                                     —J. H. Ward.
    Salt   Lake Cit}-, Utah.