--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Pearson, Sarah E. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 11 number: 4 published: 1908-02 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Sarah E. Pearson, "An Opinion on Home and Other Fiction," *Improvement Era* 11, no. 4 (February 1908): 287–289.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1104unse 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: improvementera1104unse start_page: 287 end_page: 289 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1908-02) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1104unse publication_year: 1908 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 1908, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # An Opinion on Home and Other Fiction AN OPINION ON HOME AND OTHER FICTION, BY SARAH E. PEARSON. [A friend presents this compliment: "Long live the Era. With the exception of a third class story, once in a while, it is quite the best magazine the ' Church has ever published. The world can beat us at yarns; our strength is in the truth." Realizing that supplying stories is an important matter, and knowing that the Era is constantly importuned to print more, we referred the above statement to the writer, and she has given this opinion on home and other fiction. In passing, we wish to say that the Era is looking for stories of achievement, action, and inspiration. They should illustrate the positive, not the negative, the good in life, not the bad. Life is too short for any person to spend time in patterning after the weak, the transgressor, the fallen; better imitate the strong, the upright, the virtuous; better know what to do, than what not to do. — Editors.] This question of fiction is a big subject, and cannot be set aside in a few words. If our own stories are often crude, they are, at least, harmless; but space in such a very excellent magazine as the Era cannot be yielded to merely negative qualities, its aim being an active campaign of righteousness. I have taken pains the last few months to find out what my neighbors read. You would be appalled at the food offered for relaxation of the mind. In some country towns, where reading matter is at a premium, three families out of four took the little thirty-five-cent-a year with-a-chromo-thrown-in magazines, or story papers. I expostulated with some of the mothers for admitting such stuff, and they said they took them for fancy-work patterns; but I noticed the children read them. We were on the Government works at Corbett for a few months, and used to exchange our books and magazines with one another in a neighborly fashion, all up and down the canyon. I 288 IMPROVEMENT ERA. also took note, in traveling back and forth on the cars and on the stage, of what people preferred to read by what they bought, not borrowed. In the canyon, it was a little of everything, much of it standard, but always fiction. My Review of Reviews, Collier's Weekly, or What the World is Doing went begging. Mixed magazines, i. e., containing useful articles on current topics, as well as fiction, were read — for the stories. In traveling to Utah, I always noticed the titles of papers and magazines read en route, on the theory of "judge a man by the books he reads;" after I got here we took furnished rooms, and I found a number of odd magazines in the book case. I carried the investigation a little farther, and exchanged magazines with a number of the neighbors up and down. In four times out of five, taken all through, I found them to be all-story magazines, the Argosy, or the Popular, in most cases, stories without pith, without point, without wit, and without morals; and I have come to the conclusion that one of the devil's right hand men is the vicious story paper. There are two things we might do to raise the standard of taste in fiction, publish an all-story magazine of our own, for one thing; and arrange through the M. I. Associations for traveling libraries of some of the very best works of fiction with which everybody is expected to be familiar, for the other. And to the last I would surely add some of the best biographies, the Faith Promoting Series, for instance, and the Life oj Heber C. Kimball. I could almost speak of all fiction with contempt in comparison with the last named. No one ever gets up from it with that heart-sinking conviction of time wasted; on the contrary, the soul bears glad witness that the mind, the spirit has been in good company I have read and forgotten many a novel, but I will never forget the Faith Promoting books I used to read to my foster-mother. She would wake me from the dreamless sleep of childhood with the request, sometimes, that F sing to her, or, at others, that I read to her, for she could not sleep. And if Saul enjoyed hearing the music, David certainly enjoyed making it; and they have carried their life-long conviction of faith and comfort. So, summing it all up, if we must read fiction, at times, let it be the best, and let us make the best easier to get at, for God AN OPINION ON HOME AND OTHER FICTION. 289 knows the bad is everywhere present, and falls into our hand at the touch, like an over-ripe peach. And when we write truth, let us strive with all our hearts to make it as attractive as possible, not to ape fiction but to take the lead. The normal mind cannot help regarding truth with more favor than can be given the most brilliant display of imagination; and truth, in its most sacred aspect, never suffers in comparison, though its plainness and beauty may suffer in association, with error. Here is a case in point. We visited the moving picture rendition of the Passion Play. Some parts of it — the true parts — given in the Bible narrative, were touching and beautiful. It could be elaborated along legitimate lines to make one of the most sublime and instructive of all exhibitions, yet the grandest climaxes were spoiled by the introduction of some foolish tradition, which would give us such a jolt from the sublime to the ridiculous as to make us giggle, while the tears were streaming down our faces and dropping off our chins. The sectarian idea of an angel which resembled nothing in heaven or on earth made us sigh, ''Oh, for the graceful, flowing, white robes, the majesty, the dignity of a Moroni, to offset that sorrowful, suffering figure of Christ!" The Passion Play from a "Mormon" point of view, — from a Bible point of view, would preach such a sermon to the world "as the philosophy of man never dreamed of," because it would be truth. Eternal Truth, and nothing but Truth! Ogden, Utah. On the 28th of July, President Rufus K. Hardy, of the New Zealand mission, dedicated a new meetinghouse at Waahi, Waikato. The chapel is 24y36 feet, and has a seating capacity of 200; the interior, so we learn from the Messenger, is very artistically and comfortably finished. At the entrance of the building is a tower, giving the structure a neat appearance. Eider David M. Taylor was the architect and builder, and was assisted by Elders Erick P. Christensen, Wm. D. Walton and George W. Tanner. These elders assisted in raising funds as well as in the erection and finishing of the building. The native elders and Saints donated liberally .for^the structure which was entirely free from debt at its dedication.