Mutual Work

PRIESTHOOD QUORUMS TABLE. 1043 teacher, and let not all be spokesmen at once; but let one speak at a time, and let all listen unto his sayings, that when all have spoken, that all may be edified of all, and that every man may have an equal privi- ln the foregoing statement I have endeavored briefly to outline the mission and duties of the elders' quorums, to their members at home and abroad. Let us now briefly consider the duties of the individual elder to his quroum and to the priesthood which he holds in the Church. First, there is the attendance at quorum meetings. During the time that I labored in the presidency of one of the elders' quorums of the old Weber stake, I discovered that one of the greatest difficulties we had to contend with was non-attendance at quorum meetings. This led to an inquiry as to the cause, which revealed various excuses. Among them was that of some of the younger brethren that they had recently been married, and that their wives would not stay at home alone. Unfortunately for the elders' quorums, in many cases in the past young men were ordained elders before they were elligible for marriage in the temple. Too often their only object was to get married; hence they considered the ordina- tion to the office of elder merely a mechanical process to obtain their object. The result is they attended their quorum meeting for the ordination and then failed to attend future meetings. In our enquiries we received excuses from some of these brethren fulfiling the words of the parable in the scriptures: "I pray thee have me excused. . . . I have married a wife and cannot come." The only cure for these evils, and to increase the attendance, is a constant looking after, a continuous following them up, on the part of the presidency of the quorum, assisted by faithful members. It is an excellent plan for the president of a quorum to appoint one of the faith- ful members, who lives near a delinquent member, to call upon the delin- quent on the following Monday night and bring him, if possible, to the quorum meeting with him. The following up plan, of course, should be done "by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness and love unfeigned. . . . That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death," Then, too, the quorum presidency should see to it that every mem- ber has something to do continually. Make a definite rule to commence meetings on time, and close on time. Avoid, by all means, discussions on technical, and perhaps immaterial questions. Have a program pre- pared which will be carried out systematically and with spice. If there are members of the quorum who are inclined to sing, group them together and encourage them to sing before the quorom in a quartette, or other-

1044 IMPROVEMENT ERA. wise. The Lord has said, concerning the songs of Zion, "For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart, yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads" (Doc. and Cov. 25: 12). I think the primary cause of non-interest and slackness of duty by some elders in their quorums, and in the Church, is due to the fact that they do not understand the spirit and weight of their calling; they do not appreciate their standing in the priesthood. It is conferred upon them as a free jewel from heaven, but they understand not its value. Therefore, let the faithful quorum workers unite, and enquire after the delinquents in the spirit of kindness and brotherly love, explaining unto them that where much is given much will be required and "he that is slothful shall not be counted worthy to stand, and he that learns not his duty and shows himself not approved shall not be counted worthy to stand." Endeavor also to arouse the spark of divinity which rests dor- mant in their bosoms. Show them the blessings in store for faithful elders, that "by magnifying their calling they may be sanctified by the spirit unto the renewing of their bodies, they may become the seed of Abraham and the Church and kingdom, and the elect of God." Steadfastness. — We have determined that the gospel is true. Let us remain steadfast. "A man should not incessantly change with every impression of the moment, but should remain steadfast when he has once determined upon what is right. Of what use are the flowers if they do not produce fruits, and of good ideas if they are not transmuted into deeds? We must encourage stability, habituate ourselves to remain constant, and when we are sure that we are right, must fortify ourselves against invasion. Do not let criticisms or attacks disturb you." —Wagner. Quorum Outlines. — Quorums desiring outlines should send orders to the Improvement Era, 20-22 Bishop's Building, and the books, will be forwarded promptly. All outlines are fifteen cents each this year. Now that the quorums have resumed work again, every member should have an outline.

Mutual Work. The Y. M. M. I. A. Reading Course. Dr. George H. Brimhall, president of the Brigham Young University, and chairman of the General Board Y. M. M. I. A. Committee on Read- ing Course, has this to say to young men about books: Man is what he feeds on, and what he does. Physically, man feeds on food, drink, air, light and temperature. Intellectually, man feeds on ideas, and one of the best of these feeding grounds is a book, i. e., a good book. "Tell me what you think, and I'll tell you what you are." Tell me what you read and I'll tell you what you think. Choice ideas lead to choice habits, choice habits make choice men. Choice books contain the choicest ideas of the choicest minds. The production and preservation of books has been a matter of Divine care. The Lord indicated to Nephi that the fate of a whole people depended on the getting of a book from the library of Laban. It would appear that the Book of Mormon had a guardian angel of no common type. Through the ages that it slumbered in the hill, the hour of its coming forth was marked on the dial plate of prophecy. The Lord loves books because they are levers for lifting men to higher things. He counsels, saying, "Seek ye knowledge out of the best books." If God indicated that the salvation of a nation depended on a book, what shall we say of the possibility of saving an individual without books? Can it be done in the light of the declaration, "No man can be saved in ignorance?'' "Man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge." The Adamic race had a written language in the first dispensation. The Lord taught them to write and read. The race that reads not. has no civilization. It can no more become civilized than a man can become educated without a memory. Books are the memory of the race. Now it comes to this, — read, or be ruled out from the best society. The following gem from the pen of Channing may be committed to memory with great profit: It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds, and these invaluable means of communication are in the reach of

1046 IMPROVEMENT ERA. all. In the best books great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. God be thanked for books. They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levelers. They give to all who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence of the greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am— no matter though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling — if the sacred writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of paradise, and Shake- speare to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultured man. It has been said that the difference between a book and a person is that one you can shut up when you wish, while the other you can't. Well, a book once read cannot be shut up. Its pages are ever after open to him who has read it, either encouraging him upward or drawing him downward. Books are to be chosen with the same care as companions. Careless companionship is no more dangerous than is idte reading. THE BOOKS FOR THIS M. I. A. YEAR. Knowing that lofty literature leads to the inability to love low ideals, the committee has selected several volumes for the junior students. Captain Bonneville, by Washington Irving, a true-to-life description of the pre-pioneer period of the great Rocky mountain region. The book is a master pen-picture of the invasion of the wild west by the adventur- ous trapper and explorer. Read it, and you cannot help remembering its contents, unless your memory has been enebriated by sensa- tionalism. Widow O'Callaghan's Boys — Zollinger: No boy can read this little volume without having a higher regard for "Mother's Boy," and an increase of desire to be more helpful at home. The story leads on in a way that the reader wants to follow to a finish. The pages fairly sparkle with what might be called domestic psychology. It is good reading for mothers as well as their sons. The Bishop's Shadow: This book is published without introduction or preface. The author, I. T. Thurston, thinks it all sufficient to put on the fly-leaf, "To the Beautiful Memory of Philips Brooks," and launches us out upon a boy-life voyage with the story of "A Lost Pocketbook." One of the charms of the work is the resting places where the reader may stop and look back as one who has mowed a swath of fragrant grass, and, after "sharpening up a bit," leans forward and cuts on and

MUTUAL WORK. 1047 on, joyously triumphant to the end of the field. It is. a case of the man winning the boy and the boy winning his way. This book is good read- ing for the father, the teacher and the president. Titcomb's Letters, by J. G. Holland, is suited to both Junior and Senior students. This work has lived the law of the survival of the fittest for nearly a quarter of a century. The first letter, "Getting the Right Start," is splendid, but no better than those which follow. The volume contains twenty-four letters, eight to young men and eight to young women, and eight to young married people. The writer is pointed, practical and yet poetic. It is a work of high themes, handled in a masterly manner. For the Senior students, Friendship and Other Essays, the product of the great mind of Emerson. The volume contains three world-famed essays— "Friendship," "Prudence," and "Heroism." Each essay is a string of pearls; a stream of purest, highest thoughts, information, ideality, and inspiration flows from ihe pages. To read any part of this book is to feel one's self rising into a higher self. Here are some sam- ple sentences from its pages: "We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken." "Nature punishes any neglect of Prudence." "The characteristic of a genuine heroism is its persistency." Get this little book. You can put it in your coat pocket. At leis- ure time you can converse with a man of whom the Anglo-Saxon race may well be proud. It is no small thing to say that you are acquainted with Emerson. Lorna Doom, by Blackmore. It is not too much to say that this is a choice story— a real romance furnishing elevated entertainment. Any one who recreates in such a field of poetic prose as the pages of this classic furnishes, will have a literary taste which will revolt against any indulgence in low literature. Tell me what a man likes to read, and I will tell you what he has been reading. Brewer's American Citizenship— full of crisp, up-to-date ideas on the very things that we need in our ccmmunity life. Every American worthy the name is a prince or a princess, by birth or adoption. The two great things to learn are— first, to be a man, then to be a citizen. Empty your pocket into your brain by buying and reading this book. Reading Course Methods. "Diferentiate or Die" is a law which has been in force from the beginning, and it has not been repealed by nature, yet. Every line of life is operating under it today. It is as operative in education as it is in business, so put this reading course work under the supervision of some one or more persons in your stake,

104S IMPRO VEMENT ERA . and in each ward, and see that it is worked at, and reports made of its success or its failure. Give time, somewhere at your meetings, for a review of the books. Make the Reading Course a live part of a live asso- ciation. Bring it to the front sometime, somehow, somewhere. Officers should get into the books, and let the books get into them, and this will make appreciation possible. Nothing can grow so well without official appreciation as it can with it. Appreciation is the highest kind of encouragement. Let the M. I. A. in its Reading Course echo the Call of the Ages, "Go on, or get out of the way." Public Library and Reading Rooms: — Let us encourage the free public library by lending it support, and by giving it our patronage. The library habit is a sure cure for the pool-room pastime: one is a mind-filler, and the other is a time-killer. The home-reading habit is a safeguard of the home-loving instinct. ''And the more of home, the more of heaven in this life." Provo, Utah. The Deseret Gymnasium. The opening for physical examination and membership, September 1, of the Deseret Gymnasium marks a new epoch in the progress of Church work. The Church has always encouraged manly sports and legitimate enjoyments. It is a part of its creed that the most efficient Latter-day Saint is the one who is well balanced mentally, morally, and physically. In the city the chances for proper physical training are small. The tendency is for the young people to grow up hollow-chested and weak-eyed. Hence, the authorities deemed it necessary to provide some means of securing for the young people a place where they could get this physical training, and that under the direction of our own peo- ple. At the same time they thought to provide a means of legitimate enjoyment to the young people by encouraging athletic games and contests. The Deseret Gymnasium, to be opened September 15, is the largest and best equipped institution in the intermountain district. It is ninety feet wide by one hundred and fifty feet long — outside measurement, and is three stories high. On the ground floor are the offices of the director and instruction staff, a barbar shop, six standard bowling alleys, a room for handball, a private exercise room, two rooms for visiting teams, twenty-three private dressing rooms, a locker-room containing thirteen hundred steel lockers, a private locker-room, twelve showers, a wash and toilet room, and the pool.