---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Barrett, J. T.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 15
number: 4
published: 1912-02
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Barrett, J. T., "A Chip or Two Hewn from the Tree of Life," *Improvement Era* 15, no. 4 (February 1912): 344–345.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1504unse
  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: improvementera1504unse
start_page: 344
end_page: 345
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1912-02)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1504unse
  publication_year: 1912
  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 1912, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# A Chip or Two Hewn from the Tree of Life

<!-- page:344 -->

A Chip or Two Hewn from the Tree of Life BY JOHN T. BARRETT A grouch in a palace makes it a worse place than a hovel.
Sunshine in the soul makes the cot a restored Eden, and the inmates are in paradise already. A palatial house may be built with gold, but it takes true hearts, with mutual understandings, to make the palace a home. Why build a palace for a home and beautify the surroundings with that which gladdens the physical eye, and then make this visible Eden a hell by your presence in it ? The inmates are the life of the place. In them lies the power to make hell of an Eden, or heaven in the midst of the barren wastes. Not the place, but the life, and what we throw into it

<!-- page:345 -->

A CHIP OR TWO HEWN FROM THE TREE OF LIFE 345

in the way of improvements, makes us happiest. It is easier to

get other's good opinion and approval of our conduct than to get
our own. Be our professions what they may, the acts of men
may be deceptive, but to get the approval of our own good conscience is a task that demands a straight life in secret and openly.

 I cannot afford to strike my brother a blow or speak ill of
him. In self-defense, Imust desist, for the act hurts me worse
than it does him. By a strike I may injure the mortal frame of
my enemy, or friend, but his injury will heal, but there remains
within me a wound that is a scar on the soul, and it will not heal.
The sooner we learn this lesson, the wiser and more cautious will
we act in such matters. Strike if you must, but bear in mind, as
you do it, that the act is going to glance off the object which you
seek to injure and rebound upon yourself with added force. His
body or reputation may be hurt thereby, but if I am the cause of
the hurt, my mortal soul is sure to report a discord in the harmony
of my life, and I am sure to be wounded. Christ recognized this
great fact when he said: "When thou art reviled, revile not
again." "If thine enemy smite thee on one cheek, turn to him the
other also." A man who does not do so is ruining his own castle
of character. His munitions of war are turned upon his own
forces he is destroying his own defenses.
 ;