--- 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: 14 number: 7 published: 1911-05 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Priesthood Quorums’ Table," *Improvement Era* 14, no. 7 (May 1911): 650–654.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1407unse 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: improvementera1407unse start_page: 650 end_page: 654 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1911-05) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1407unse publication_year: 1911 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 1911, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Priesthood Quorums’ Table Priesthood Quorums' Table. Forjthe Priesthood Generally: The following important report, made by a sub-committee to the General Priesthood Outlines Committee of the Church, was read at the General Priesthood meeting of the Church held at the annual conference, April 7, and unanimously adopted. It thus becomes the working guide of all the Priesthood quorums of the entire Church: Brethren:—Your committee, appointed to make suggestions regarding missionary work and methods of making the outlines more effective, beg to report: Recognizing the great advantage to the Church that has come through the establishment, by the authorities, of the weekly priesthood meetings, we deplore the custom that exists in some stakes, of adjourning them for a long period during the summer. If the labors of the brethren in the agricultural communities do not permit of a meeting on a week night during their busy season, we feel that some time on Sunday should be arranged for taking up the lessons, so that every week of the year a meeting may be held for study and preparation for the duties of the priesthood. Any break in the classes causes a loss of interest and seriously detracts from the success of the outline work. The summer time is particularly the season of pleasure-seeking; and the boys and young men are naturally subjected to greater temptations. At no time is it so necessary for them to have fresh in their memories the sacred calling and authority given them of the Lord. There is a tendency also to interrupt class work by calling other meetings or transacting business on the night that is set apart for priesthood meeting. All such matters should be attended to some other night. As the studies are now taken up, each quorum or division of a quorum must have an instructor to conduct the lessons. This instructor may be one of the officers of the quorum, or some one else appointed to that work. It is very difficult to secure men who do justice to this calling, and many a young man, who could be held by well-presented lessons, loses interest and stays away because of haphazard methods and lack of preparation. Too much emphasis, your committee believes, can- PRIESTHOOD QUORUMS' TABLE. 651 not be placed on the necessity of having every instructor of the lesser or higher priesthood go before his brethren prepared to feed them the words of life. To secure this result, preparatory instructions of those who are called to teach in the quorums is imperative. The stakes that are obtaining the best results in the priesthood work, have adopted some method of securing this preparation, the method differing in different places. Some stake presidents have very successfully used their stake priesthood meetings for such preparation, following a plan similar to that of the stake Sunday School Union. Others have held a meeting of the instructors at a different time, and still others are spending part of their stake priesthood meeting in considering general stake matters and the other part in pre-viewing the month's work among the instructors of the various quorums. Such a method as the last, if no better is employed, it has appeared to us, could and should be adopted in all the stakes. Greater brevity in the opening exercises would make this easier. In some places an extraordinary amount of time is consumed in roll call, minutes and other preliminaries. If for such purposes fifteen minutes were placed as the limit, valuable time might be saved for work in the instruction of class teachers. Such a method, too, would give the stake presidency and clerk an opportunity of meeting the bishops and ward clerks and taking up the problems that are of particular interest to them alone. It happens not infrequently that several hundred men and boys have to sit and hear some technical instructions given that are of little if any interest to them. As to direct missionary work with quorum members, your committee recognizes that the Lord placed officers in each quorum and that it is their special duty to look after the welfare of the members. We believe that these officers should be primarily responsible for having every slothful or absent quorum member visited, not occasionally only, but repeatedly, until there is awakened a desire to fulfil the obligation accepted when such member received ordination. We fear that too much delicacy is felt by quorum officers that deters them from doing earnest work with derelict members. What seems to be needed in the quorums at home is more of the true missionary spirit that actuates those who enter zealously into the work of preaching the gospel abroad—a spirit that makes them fearless in the advocacy of right, and that fills them with the love of souls. Every officer should be a quorum missionary in all that the word has come to mean in this Church—a seeker after those who are not in the right path,a pastor to his flock. The absence of quorum members from meetings should be quickly noticed and inquired into.and the cause of such absence learned. If it is found to be sickness, a call 652 IMPROVEMENT ERA. from quorum officers will be welcomed. If lack of interest is the reason, how could a better influence be brought to bear than by a call from the brethren who preside in the quorum of the careless one? If the absence is found to be legitimate, the call or inquiry will still have a good effect on the member, who will be made to feel, in any event, that he is thought worthy of being looked after. We therefore recommend that in all quorums where such work is not now being done, there be established a systematic visiting of members who are not regularly in attendance at the Monday night meetings; that reports of such visits be made to the quorums, so that all members shall be advised of the reasons assigned for absence, and that in this missionary work the quorum officers lead out, calling to their assistance such help as is needed, but not shirking the responsibility placed upon them by their calling. Not only should visits be made to members of quorums, but also to those who should be members. The following startling figures show the number of pers:ns holding the priesthood who are not enrolled in any regularly organized quorum. The report is more or less incomplete. A number of stakes having made no report whatever, and only about half the stakes have given a report of the Melchizedek priesthood: High priests, 444; seventies, 632; elders, 3,200; priests, 926; teachers, 1,387; deacons, 3,679; total, 10,268. The division of the High Council into committees to oversee the work of the different quorums is a necessity, if the best results are obtained. These men, who are frequently not trained teachers, need not necessarily be burdened with the work of teaching the class instructors. Others may be found who can do this work more skilfully, but general supervision by a committee of High Councilors and their direct responsibility for the progress of that order of the priesthood cannot fail to spur on the slothful and encourage the earnest. The cultivation of a spirit of fraternity has been neglected in most qnorums, and yet it is a strong, beneficial influence. The Lord knew the tendency of boys to group themselves into little bands of about a dozen —a rusty dozen it might be—and he fixed that number for the membership of the deacons' quorum. As the boys grow into youth they appreciate the association of a larger number. These natural groupings are doubtless meant to bring into close association and companionship the members of the quorums. The spirit of the priesthood, and the fact of this division into compact bodies, would indicate that the members of the quorum should be more to one another than if they were not united by this tie. As an illustration of the good results of feeling this respon- PRIESTHOOD QUORUMS' TABLE. 653 sibility for the welfare of one another, let us cite the case of the quorum of elders in a nearby stake. One of their number is on a mission. His mission president sent word that unless means were furnished him he would have to go home. The quorum took the matter up, and within a few minutes from the time the news was given to them, provision had been made for a month's allowance for their absent brother, and later arrangements were made by which he should be kept in the field, through their help, until his mission was completed. The committee is seriously considering, but are not yet ready to report, a plan to offer the priesthood of the Church such life insurance as will take away all inducement for our young men to join fraternal societies for the sake of securing the protection these societies offer. This year should be more than ever before a year of application. It has been the purpose of the committees, in preparing the outlines, to make the work practical. Every lesson, if it is successful, must arouse determination to do the works of the priesthood and the gospel. During this year, when no new outlines have been given, it is hoped the instructors and presiding officers will make practical lessons for the members. We feel that while it is important for them to have the priesthood come to their classes prepared to recite on the lessons assigned, it is far more important for them to send the priesthood away from their classes prepared for the duties of the week. Besides the strictly official duties, the presiding officers of the quorum should provide for the members' work which is in harmony with thjir calling. During the summer, particularly, under the excellent juvenile laws of the cities and the state, somebody should be working to keep the children from being on the streets at night, and from other evils. The juvenile courts are calling for earnest men to help save the boys and girls. That work is properly the duty of the priesthood. At the present time, there is a splendid opportunity and duty to carry out the resolution adopted at the general conference of the Church some time ago, pledging our efforts towards closing the saloons. On the 27th of June, the anniversary of the martyrdom of the Prophet and Patriarch, the citizens of every city and town of Utah must vote as to whether they wish the saloon to continue its soul-destroying business. It seems to the committee that a rare opportunity is here given for the priesthood of the Lord to combat one of the most powerful means that Satan has ever been able to employ against the souls of the children of men. Duty of Presidents towards Unrecorded Seventies.—At a general priesthood meeting held in the Salt Lake tabernacle on April 7, statistics were read that had been compiled in the office of the Presid- 654 IMPRO VEMENT ERA. ing Bishopric, showing the number of individuals in the Church holding the priesthood, who are not enrolled in any quorum. The total number is about ten thousand. Of the number thus reported 632 are seventies. This should cause very much anxiety in the minds of presiding seventies, and an earnest effort should be made to search out the careless ones and have them properly received into the quorums. The First Council of Seventy desire to call the attention of all presidents to the fact that ten men on an average in every stake, holding the office of a Seventy, are not in fellowship with the quorums as fully as they should be. The presidents are urged to canvass their respective quorum districts, and bring into the quorums all who properly belong. Presidents of seventy are to remember that they are reponsible for all seventies who reside within their quorum district. If seventies come into any quorum district, and are too careless to seek recognition from the quorum, to which they should belong, or who desire to ignore the quorum, and so do not give their allegiance to it, they are nevertheless subject to the quorum presidency where they reside, and can be handled for neglect of duty, if they persist in refusing to fellowship with their brethren. The First Presidency, under date of April 13, 1883, issued an important letter of instruction to the First Council in which occurs the following paragraph: ' 'The presidents of the quorums residing in the district where their respective quorums are organized shall have a general supervision of all the seventies residing in their district." All who have been honored with the priesthood mnst be willing to recognize proper authority or jeopardize their standing in the Church. Presidents of seventy throughout the Church are directed to take the necessary steps to bring in all who are now reported as unrecorded. There should be no delay in this matter; let every man be sought out, and have his name recorded in the quorum to which he should give his allegiance. Erratum in Current Year Book. In Lesson 18, in the Analysis, sub-division I, for "Scope of the Atonement Broader than Individual Sins," read: "Scope of the Atonement Broader than Adam's Sin.'' Presidents and class teachers should call the attention of the students to this correction, that each one may correct the error in his Year Book; though in the text of the "Discussion'' (see subdivision 1) it is quite clear that the intent of the title in the Analysis is to say, "Broader than the scope of Adam's Sin," without the correction here suggested, some confusion of thought might arise.