--- 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: 12 number: 7 published: 1909-05 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "New Books by Home Authors," *Improvement Era* 12, no. 7 (May 1909): 565–568.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1207unse 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: improvementera1207unse start_page: 565 end_page: 568 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1909-05) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1207unse publication_year: 1909 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 1909, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # New Books by Home Authors EDITOR'S TABLE. r.Gf, have had to fight these battles for truth all our lives, and just as the leaven is leavening the lump with reference to some of the doctrines of the Church and Kingdom of God, and as it will eventually leaven it all, so this will be a part of it,and we will live to see the day when we will find men who will not be like Re- hoboam, the king. They will listen to the people. When the people say unto them: Give us relief, lighten the burdens that others have placed upon us, save our children, they will hearken unto the will of the people; and, in God's name, we will be free from the bondage with which some of our brethren would still shackle us. Then what shall we do? Why, to your tents, oh Israel! Back to your homes and put double vigilance and watchfulness around your own firesides, and double and re-double your efforts to preserve your sons and your daughters, and your fair name and the gospel of Christ, from the hands of those who would drag , from your thresholds the innocence and purity of your children, and sink them in the mire for gain. NEW BOOKS BY HOME AUTHORS. New Witnesses for God— II, the Book of Mormon, in two volumes, by B. H. Roberts, average 500 pages each, published and for sale by the Deseret News, price per volume, cloth, $1.25. The first volume of this series is Joseph Smith, the Prophet, and was published some years ago. The second part in the series, now appears intwo volumes under the above title. Volume two is ready for distribu- tion and three will follow in a few days. Over twenty years have gone by since Elder Roberts first began work on these volumes, and it is about six years since they were first published in a three-year course of Manuals designed for the Y. M. M. I. A. senior classes. He was so full of the subject that the manuscript, first designed for one year's course on the Book of Mormon, grew into three manuals which were adopted by the Mutuals in 1903 and the years following. As the author became enthusiastic and interested in his subject, he seems to have had the power to transfer those feelings to every person who has studied his text. The members of the classes who took up the etudy were not only enthusiastic, but their desires for further investigations grew, and the general result was an increased interest in the sacred record: and invari- ably a stronger testimony of its divine origin. Elder Roberts has both written and spoken much on the Book of Mormon, in the meantime, and is without doubt the most widely read author, as well as the best known speaker, on this subject in the Church. The text of the present volumes has undergone thorough revision, with amplifications, new facts added to bring in the latest thought, with eliminations where these were ne- — 566 IMPRO VEMENT ERA . cessary to meet just criticism or to strengthen the work. It is true that some objections have been advanced to his theories of the transla- tion of the Book of Mormon, and the origin of man, as set forth to de- monstrate his arguments on the internal evidences of the sacred record; but he maintains his position on these and other points with added dignity and strength, and convincing hammer blows of argument. The present volumes contain his latest word and his best presentation. Here he marshals his arguments in favor of his position, and where needed tempers them to the criticisms that have gone before. While the Book of Mormon is only an incident in the establishment of the great Church of Christ in the Latter-days, it is so very important that if it could be proved to be anything other than what the Prophet Joseph claimed it to be, —an ancient volume of American scripture pre- served and translated by the power of God, dealing with the history of the ancient inhabitants of America, and containing a message from God to them, and being a witness to the present generation for him —Joseph Smith could be counted a false prophet, and all the marvelous work re- sulting from his labors, vain. So it is that the author, in these thousand pages, ably enters the literary field "to prove the origin of the Book of Mormon to be what we say it is, and the book itselj to be what we proclaim it to be — a revelation from God. To do this his treatise is divided into four parts: I. The value of the Book of Mormon as a Witness for the Authen- ticity and Integrity of the Bible; and the Truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. II. The Discovery of the Book of Mormon and its Translation. Migrations, Lands, Intercontinental Movements, Civilizations, Govern- ments and the Religions of its Peoples. III. Evidence of the Truth of the Book of Mormon. (External and Internal.) IV. Objections to the Book of Mormon. Every person must recognize that the testimony of the Holy Ghost to the mind is the primary and only absolutely sure way of obtaining a knowledge that the Book of Mormon is divine; yet no person will under- estimate the very important bearing that secondary evidences of its divinity has upon the human mind, to place it in condition to receive the primary testimony. These secondary evidences have never before been as well treated as in these volumes. In the writer's opinion, it is the broadest, most convincing treitise, and most valuable contribution to the literature on the Book of Mormon ever written. With an interesting presentation, and proofs from many and inspiring sources, skilfully selected, arranged and commented upon, readers of intelligence will find EDITOR'S TABLE. 567 these volumes more fascinating and of vastly greater importance, touch- ing the affairs of this life and the life to come, than the most striking book of the year. The Elders' quorums whose members are now study- ing the Book of Mormon will find these books indispensable as a text to read in connection with their lessons. Our Inland Sea, The Story of a Homestead, by Alfred Lambourne, Deseret News press; 256 pages, deckel edge paper, handsomely illus- trated with headings and page vignettes by James T. Harwood, on sale at the Deseret News Book Siore. The typographical work is the best ever done in Utah. Here is a book that will live because it breathes poetry which ever awakens human interests and the spiritual'in man. The text is no mere description, with figures, measurements, analyses, percentages, and scientific theories; it is a grand, artistic, panoramic portrait of the valley of the Great Salt Lake, with its mystic mountains, its clear creeks, its pioneer homes, its dead deserts, and its Inland sea and islands > all painted with the brush of an artist in love with his work, and expres- sed in the words of a poet compelled to part with his portion. The viewpoint is from Gunnison island where the artist lived for fourteen months, built his hut, and planted his vineyard. From this position he gently leads the reader to see nature and her various moods as he sees them, and in twenty-one sympa- thetic lessons teaches beautiful and true things and thoughts of the desert, the dreamy sunset, the lake and stream, hill, glen and valley, canyon and mountain, and all their belongings, intertwining them with his many years of philosophic observations, and studious, but alternate- ly sad and hopeful, meditation. Instinct- ively his attentive pupil is inspired with a new love for nature and our wondrous West. Whatever, too, of tradition, his- tory and past natural phenomena can il- lumine the thought or awaken apprecia- tion for the glories of the Wasatch, the Desert, and the Inland Sea. are called Alfred Lambourne Drawing by M. M. Youn^ from the author's storehouse and made to do service in the pages of this volume. Not the least good to be obtained from the work is the rich thought to 568 IMPRO VEMENT ERA . be gathered from a contemplation of the inventory of property, and the seventeen benefits accruing to the author, according to his own confes- sion, taken on the night of his departure from the island home. It was then that he and his companions built a drift-wood fire, sang a song beneath the stars, "sent a melody across the waste,'' and "heard an obligato of wind and sea." Here are three benefits: To see the true relationship between the stern justice of the Mosaic Law, and the greater power of the Golden Rule. To realize that the motive should be in the deed and not the event. The majesty that lies in the simple words: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Our Inland Sea forever connects Alfred Lambourne with Gunnison Island of the G r eat Salt Lake. He has stamped it with his individuality. It is his "without title or deed." Leaves of Truth is a book of 278 pages on Utah and the "Mormons," by John Phillips Meakin, printed b} the Deseret Aews presses. It con. sists of miscellaneous papers, poems and letters, used in his many lectures; and every page appeals for a nobler manhood. "The lec- tures," says the author, "tell ofUtah and the 'Mormons' what I told the people of the East about the people of the West. The letters tell the people of the West about the people of the East. The poems form a golden chain connecting both." Everybody has heard of John P. Meakin, and his unselfish and noble defense of the "Mormons.'' In Leaves of Truth one finds the germ, the epitome, the epigrammatic foundation of what in his lecture tours he has so well said to the people of the nation, and it is so stated as not to make a dull page in the whole b)ok. His own life as given in the introduction, and in the chapter "The Story of a Life," is a remarkable and pretty romance in itself. In the thirty seven chapters and twenty-one poem^, almost every phase of the past and present of Utah and the "Mormons" is pithily discussed — in- cluding educational, political, ethical, and religious conditions, description and history. Of particular interest are the chapters, "Out in the Desert," "Prejudice," "A Plea for the Right," "Joseph Fielding Smith," "The Story of the 'Mormons,' " "To Live and Grow," and the poems and sketches intervening. The book is dedicated by the author to his mother: "To the one who sang in my ears — on my journey —from boy to man: "Do what is right, let the consequence follow, Battle for freedom in spirit and might, And, with stout hearts, look ye forth till tomorrow, God will protect you, do what is right."