--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 8 number: 10 published: 1905-08 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Faithful to Humble Tasks," *Improvement Era* 8, no. 10 (August 1905): 763.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0810unse 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: improvementera0810unse start_page: 763 end_page: 763 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1905-08) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0810unse 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. --- # Faithful to Humble Tasks — TRUE GREATNESS. 76a may be drawn to such instances as the calling of Bezaleel and Aholiab, whom the Lord made wonderfully in the archi-skillful tecture of the tabernacle in Moses' time; the instructions given of the Lord to Joseph Smith, the Prophet, (Doctrine and Covenants Section 24,) wherein he was told that he should no longer give his attention to temporal labor, and should not be strong in such things; but all his service should be devoted in Zion, for that was his calling, and in that he should have strength. To Oliver Cowdery, also, was the promise given, that through humility and devotion to the work of the Lord, he should be given strength such as is not known among men. (In all instances, it is shown that humility is an essential element in true greatness.) One more example, more truly great than all others, the inspiration denoting the high, especial calling manifest in the pathetic answer to his mother when she would have Him return work in the carpenter to His shop, given by the twelve year old Jesus, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" Salt Lake City, Utah. FAITHFUL TO HUMBLE TASKS. Let no youth think that Jesus Christ was made perfect through dramatic and imposing positions; he stood forth at thirty years of age, the divine teacher and Savior, but during those thirty years he had never seen a single mountain peak hour. He was simply faithful to the plane and the saw, as carpenter. Faithful to a rude, bare house, that was a widow's home. Faithful as an older brother, to bear the burdens of Mary's younger children. But he fulfilled these humble tasks with divine fidelity. He manifested a godlike spirit in the performance of duties in themselves trifling. He illustrated universal experience in the •narrowest round of duties. Reviewing his career, men confess that he was without sin. He was faithful unto death, and it is given unto every child, obeying his parents, to every maid, looking upward toward her mistress, to the clerk, carrying the behest of his employer, to the poor, rising above the besetments of poverty, to compact thought and deed into habit and character, that fill the soul with happiness and joy. And when all things else perish, "when the stars grow cold, and the world grows old, and the leaves of the judgment book unfold," these fidelities will abide forever. Hillis.