--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Pack, Fred J. - Pack, Sadie Grant collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 8 number: 6 published: 1905-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Fred J. Pack and Sadie Grant Pack, "Testimony of John W. Rigdon," *Improvement Era* 8, no. 6 (April 1905): 465–467.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0806unse 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: improvementera0806unse start_page: 465 end_page: 467 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1905-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0806unse publication_year: 1905 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 1905, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Testimony of John W. Rigdon EDITOR'S TABLE. 463 men, might be led to believe that the Church authorities have become corrupt in business affairs, and that they are conducting the Church as a vast corporation for the personal aggrandizement of one man, or one set of men, and they the officers of the Church. Nothing could be further from the truth; whatever enterprises the Church authorities are interested in, with the credit or influence of the Church,they have become so for the peoples' interests, and not for that of any one man nor class of men; and furthermore, the Church is not organized for the sake of making money. Where it has supported enterprises,it has temporarily done so with its credit, for the advancement, assistance, and welfare of the community. This talk about the Church or its authorities ever having threatened, in any way, to crush any business, is founded in personal acrimony and falsehood. It is on a par with the declaration that free speech, and thought, and action, is suppressed by the President and authorities of the Church; one only needs to hear the speech, read the thought, and observe the actions of certain men, as a refutation, and to know that such declaration is false io the extreme, and very ridiculous. Joseph F. Smith. THE APOSTATE. There's the apostate, now. He's a queer creature. Very queer! He has some remarkable notions. And no matter who he is, or when he apostatized, he is all alike in some things. For instance, he always feels very much abused. No matter what has been done, or what left undone; your apostate, if he is the genuine article, feels that any number of people have been in league against him. Of course, there are those who simply drift out of the Church through indifference or general neglect. And indifferent and neglectful they generally remain. Again, there are those who leave other churches. But someway, such people never manifest the real apostate spirit. For they fail to manifest the 464 IMPROVEMENT ERA. infallible signs. Diagnose these cases, and the true symptoms will be found absent. One apostatizes only from truth, not error. But to return to our simon-pure apostate; for he generally turns on us. He not only feels he is abused, but in the abandonment of his self-piety he pictures whole cohorts of persons who hare been conspiring for his overthrow. Symptom number one. The next stage of his malady is exhibited when he begins to think he is twenty years ahead of the Church. The Church, according to him, is a good, old, doddering idiot, who has been a pretty fair specimen at one time, but now has lagged miles, leagues, eons behind your anxious apostate. If this—and but that—and perhaps in the days to come, if the Church can only be persuaded to get a hurry on itself—well, you know, it might be possible, in some dim and distant future for the poor old Church to catch the apostate and its own breath at the same time, and proudly linking arms with the soulful and condescending whilom apostate, together they might travel the comfortable broad way that leads to, you know where! Oh yes, and how graciously will your kingly apostate then forgive his long-time delinquent brethren, and how munificent will be his gifts, and self-applied donations; and how magniloquently will he pour out his healing eloquence to soothe all the wicked leaders who will then have repented and come bending and crawling to him. The picture of all this makes him weep in the night. And he weeps! Symptom number two! Then this self-righteous individual, we are discussing, has another profound conviction: this usually is in the last stages of the complaint, and occurs about the time the oflicers have had to quarantine him; he resents being told of his affliction. It hurts his sensitive feelings to be told that he is an apostate. He is nothing of the kind! Don't you dare . The story of the Indian here comes to mind, "Me no lost," grunts the wandering Lo, "me no lost, wickiup lost!" And that's the case with our impatient patient; he hasn't apostatized, not he! It's the Church that's apostatized! He has fought and bled all his life for the same things for which he is fighting and bleeding now, so to speak! He, the great, the good, the only, he apostatized? Perish the thought, and with it the four hundred and fifty thousand people who think the thought! And most of all, perish the local, stake or general EDITOR'S TABLE. 465 authorities who are in the direct line of our apostate's vision. Down with the priesthood! Up with unbridled license! And thus ends symptom number three. If the patient then gets the rabies, and goes out clothed with indignation and with flames bursting from his mouth, he is in the last stages of decomposition, and everybody should get out of the way. Keep out of the chamber of death and despair, unless duty calls you within. Then hang up all the disinfectants you can procure; be exceedingly careful of contagion, for the disease is said to be very catching for relatives and friends; cover up the mal-odorous remains of what was once a friend and brother, and depart as quickly as may be. Let us consign the rest to oblivion. Dost like the picture? Then avoid the disease! Susa Young Gates. TESTIMONY OF JOHN W. RIGDON. The Era has received the following interesting statement from New York City, under date of March 12, 1905: Today, at a meeting of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, held at 151 W. 125th Street, John W. Rigdon, son of Sidney Rigdon, made some remarks of which the following is an abstract: I was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when I was a boy of nine years, by Hyrum Smith, but was never confirmed a member. The baptism was witnessed by my father and Joseph Smith. I am now nearly seventy-five years old. My father and family were in Pittsburg when Joseph was killed. On hearing of it, my father went immediately to Nauvoo, claiming that he should be the leader of the Church, but the apostles did not think so, and Brigham Young was appointed to take the lead. My father was very much hurt, and felt that his labors had not been appreciated. In the early sixties, [he gave the year] I went to Idaho and thence to Salt Lake City. Eliza R. Snow and others tried to induce me to join the Church, but I did not, and came home to the