--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Crocheron, George W. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 10 number: 6 published: 1907-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Crocheron, George W., "Excessive Hilarity," *Improvement Era* 10, no. 6 (April 1907): 443.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera106unse 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: improvementera106unse start_page: 443 end_page: 443 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1907-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera106unse publication_year: 1907 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 1907, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Excessive Hilarity THE TEST OF GENUINENESS. 443 sitions, while actually leading them as to some. He would not recant and his life paid the forfeit. Now, had he been a day- dreamer, a mere visionary, a speculator upon the credulity of his fellows, a scheming impostor, or anything of that kind, it is not to be supposed that he would cling to his false pretenses at such a cost, when even by making the appearance of abandonment he could have lived, as did Galileo; nor, is it for a moment to be admitted that even the attestation of his blood would alone have imparted such sanctity and virility to the cause as would have made it grow and prosper—exactly the reverse. Felling the tree would have killed it and all the vines, tendrils and branches grow- ing with it. Does error ever propagate a condition of things by the operations of which the remotest wilds are penetrated,subdued, and brought within the pale of civilization, laying first the founda- tion and then consummating the creation of empire? Do those who wilfully and systematically uphold and practice pernicious doc- trines continue to thrive, increase in numbers, and advance in all moral and material respects, until they themselves constitute an empire, their numbers increasing ten fold and their possessions a thousand fold within a generation's span—more particularly when the one whose name they revere and whose precepts they uphold was cut down at a time when the blow was more severe, more trying than it could have been at any subsequent time? Impos- sible! Wrong flourishes for a season, then fades, withers and passes away; but Right struggles on to endless life through ad- versity and antagonism, "unhurt amid the war of elements, the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds." Salt Lake City, Utah . EXCESSIVE HILARITY. Loud laughter shows unrefined character in a marked degree, and its frequency robs one of that delicate demeanor which always characterizes a true lady or gentleman. —Geo. W. Crocheron.