--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Hyde, W. A. 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: 'W. A. Hyde, "The Writing on the Wall," *Improvement Era* 12, no. 7 (May 1909): 523–527.' 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: 523 end_page: 527 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. --- # The Writing on the Wall THE WRITING ON THE WALL. BY PRESIDEN1 W. A. HYDE, OF THE POCATELLO STAKE OF ZION. "Thou hast been weighed in the balance and found wanting." On the palace wall of the Babylonian king is not the only place where God had written this judgment and warning. On the pages of history,as plain as if blazoned 'twixt the stars in letters of flame, it has appeared since man wrote of the deeds of man. Dull of eye thou may est not have seen it, but happy the man who can read and be warned by this message. Not the gods, but the intelligence that made them has given a law for the universe, and that law has set its standard of weights and measurements; and by this law is weighed the souls of men, yea, the souls of nations also. By it the very gods themselves were weighed. Did our philosopher miss the truth very far when he laid down the law of the "survival of the fittest?" Or has he in a narrow, earthly vision localized that which is universal, and put within the bounds of time only that which is eternal? Has he not erred chiefly in that he has applied an exalted law to unworthy details. Had he begun with the spirit in eternity instead of in the swamps of a mud earth, would not his general conclusion have been cor- rect? I apprehend that in the beginning God made us to have do- minion; that each spirit came to the earth with the injunction to return with laurels. This command is an eternal one, — "Son of man, greatly beloved, be strong, yea be strong," and as men enter the race or combat with surging pulse, so must each one have come to earth on his mission of conquest over evil. 1 . 52 1MPK0 VEMENT ERA With the command to conquer runs there not the presumption that some may fail, and some may partly win? And doe3 not this lead to the conclusion, come to be a law, that he who is most fit shall best survive? Then from the beginning have men come bounding into this arena, and history is in most part the descrip- tion of the combat betwen man and man, and man and his pas- sions. From the mythical man with this stone club to the real titans who have stalked the earth with devastating power, the historian has diligently written a world of events, not feeling, that Mara- thon and Waterloo were not the real battlefields, but that in the narrow compass of some man's mind and heart were being fought the world contests; for in all things there have been cause and mo- tive, and in that organ thou callest the heart is the root of it, and all events, great or small as they widen out into the ocean of his- tory, shall eventually be traced back to some lone man. According to his powers has he diffused his spirit into others, who became his servants in peace or war, and then a man's heart became the seat of an empire. These mighty ones stand out as mountain peaks in the plain; but for them history, occurring nevertheless, perhaps had not been written; but these others who bore the sword or drove the plow, or traveled preaching,— what of them? Servants indeed, be the cause good or ill, whether of Alexander, Napoleon, Socrates, or Christ the Lord, voicing or acting the master thought. It is no fanciful idea merely that "out of the heart proceedeth all things." It was love in the heart of the Father that conceived the Redemption; and every man's heart working as it may, con- ceives this or that which makes his deeds. If this be true, ought not here to be found the standard by which man shall be weighed? Measure its height thou mayest not, and know his soul. His eye is a depth thou canst not penetrate, nor indeed mayest thou make his acts to judge him. Such as his heart may give thee in confes- sion, thou mayest accept, otherwise this stronghold is locked, and God alone has the key of it; therefore, every man is immune from final judgment 'till he stand bare-breasted before the bar of God. Not till then shall come the word of praise or condemnation; but ever before the plowman or the emperor, is the verdict ordered in THE WRITING ON THE WALL. 525 the beginning as the judgment of Nature, either "Thou art fit, or thou art not fit," "Thou shalt survive, or thou shalt perish." Knowest, thou not that thy heart, if it have truth and virtue in it, shall send thee forth bright-faced and strong- souled to con- quer; or that if thy heart have lies and foulness in it, that Sam- son's strength of limb shall not avail thee? Choose thou now of these two, — David the shepherd, beloved of God, the sweet singer, or David the king, shrouded before time in the cerements of death. The working of the heart hath made this prince of men to be what he is. A foul thought crept therein and he harbored it. This then is the standard, here is the weight and measure of a man. Reader of history, in what errest thou most? That thou graspest a half century, as a pebble in thy hand, or trippest it from the tip of thy tongue in ten sentences, not feeling that it is ten times thy very life, ten times thy experiences, thy sufferings and thy struggles. Thy historical landscape is made up chiefly of monuments and milestones; what about the slow dragging of six thousand years days and hours and minutes. Thou knowest little of it, and here in this wilderness of time is to be mainly found the working out of things. The groanings at Babel, the murmurings and sweatings at the Pyramids, the slow piling of the bricks at Babylon, hast thou con- sidered them? Doest thou know the scandaled woman and her child who lived in turn their allotted years, followed by another and another, while thou lookest with narrow eyes upon the Parthenon and Coloseum? Write me the life of this mother and her child, man, for they shall be felt when the Parthenon is forgotten! Thou puttest Alex- ander and the incomparable Caesar upon thrones, and envelopest them in a blaze of glory, but back of them is the mother and her child, and around them though we may not see them, for the dazz- ling light that kings emit, is incarnate purpose and power. Then, reader thou errest in this, that thou makest of his- tory many books, whereas it is one volume only, the end whereof thou shalt not see. If thou readest it thus in chapters, thou shalt not say without weighing well thy words, that Alexander or Caesar conquered, or that Socrates died, until the chapter of another age shall throw its light, then thou mayest find crowns to be shavings merely, and the glory of men passing away as the smoke of their burning; and death thou mayettfind to be immortality. Let us then, brother, unfold the scroll whereon is writ real- ities, for these others are but the things that seem to be. What seest thou, then? That virtue it conqueror ever* Not to a gentle maiden, engirdled with purity and encircled about with innocence, shall I liken thee, Virtue, but to the champion springing into the lists, brave of mien, bright of eye, strong of heart, wrapped and girded and shielded as he may be, this his strongest defense, the citadel of the soul. "Comest thou against me with a sling only?" Nay, I am weaponed with that thou knowest not of, for I have truth, which giveth confidence, and a quiet heart that giveth steadiness of hand. This is the real maker of history, be-it credited to him or not! Who are these that storm around the gates of Babylon, strong- hearted and fierce? Let the pampered feasters within tremble and fear! And these conquerors who pour down from the Pindus, cleav- ing with serried phalanxes their way through the heart of empires are nature's vindicators and avengers. And these other "wolf nurslings'' from the West, who shall stay their conquest as they trample under their eagles, man, his pride, his intelligence, his art and power, builded into what he calls a kingdom, but with lust at the heart of it? And these fierce light-haired men from the North, with strong women and trooping children following, is the time not ripe for them? Awake, ye perfumed libertines, within the walls of the Eternal city, one knocketh on the gates for thee. A better man has come to take thy heritage. And these men that sack and burn, knowing no higher art than tree or mountain top, are primal * In speaking of virtue.it is referred to in the broad sense of manly strength, of inherent power, of nature's goodness. Observance of the laws of personal puritv, though the most vital element, is only a pait of it. ! ! THE WRITING ON THE WALL. 527 men, the keen north wind not fiercer than they, and in their un- tamed hearts is the virgin power of the wide earth and plain, of limitless sky and sweeping rivers, and here mighty Nature is find- ing voice .md expression. Here is the untamed virtue of the ani- mal. Burn, Rome, the world will be the better, if only at your heart be laid the hot iron! Were your wolf-nurslings here, there were then another story, for then were man pitted against man; but better for nature's purposes, ten of these avengers who scourge and sear you than all the curled, petted, pampered, perfumed weaklings within thy gates! And this man, coming with his 'soldiers of fire" out of the ' fierce tumult of a revolution wherein "blood and heads" was the cry, and ignorance, and fierce passion, and lust, and atheism wrestled with overwhelming power with reason. He lapped with tongues of fire the thrones of kings, — a mighty scourge whose way was desolation; but shall he and his warriors be more than their hearts are, when they stand matched against virtue? For this, English mother, have you trained your son in strength and soberness that he shall make his part strong in the British square Against this, fierce fire rains and the demons of a hundred battles surge. Hasten, thou slow moving sun, to the west! Come quickly, Blucher, with thy wallowing legions ere we perish! Fear not, Soldier of Iron, the heart of thy boy is right, "and having done all, he shall yet stand." kingdom, girt about with seas, God hath so enwalled thee to be a breeding place of men! These things speak with loud voice out of the pages of his- tory, but in thy heart, man, may have been and may be now, a fiercer battle than Waterloo Thou man, at peace with the world, hast thou no enemies? Spake he not well who said, "He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city?" Man drags his cannon over the ruins of their making, and sits conqueror in the smoke of their destruc- tion. Better thou, if thou standest victor over thy tongue or thy thought. Better still if thou shalt have put shackles upon thy pas- sions; and when these all are thy servants and the forces of thy soul stand ready at thy nod, God will ask nothing else of thee hut to look up and come!