---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Roberts, B. H.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 16
number: 4
published: 1913-02
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Roberts, B. H., "Joseph Smith, Jr., as a Translator: A Plea in Bar of Final Conclusions," *Improvement Era* 16, no. 4 (February 1913): 309–310.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1604unse
  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: improvementera1604unse
start_page: 309
end_page: 310
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1913-02)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1604unse
  publication_year: 1913
  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 1913, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Joseph Smith, Jr., as a Translator: A Plea in Bar of Final Conclusions

<!-- page:309 -->

——            ——

              LITTLE PROBLEMS OF MARRIED LIFE                                             309

therefore act calmly, wisely,                  with kindness      and     dignity,       and
frankly recognize conditions and with perfect fairness take the
gentlest action that will               remedy them.         Better a short, decisive
battle fought to a finish than a constant series of petty squabbles
and skirmishes.
     We cannot be just to others if we are unjust to ourselves.                            If
one lives ever under the sceptre of the decision of others, it is not
free life   —   it   is   slavery..         One cannot keep emotion                constantly
corked up     ;some time that cork will come out perhaps inoppor-—
tunely.     True love, true companionship, true living, can reign in
the home only as there                 is   in the   home an atmosphere of liberty,
of individual freedom in its highest sense.
     If there be interference                  from outside     forces,   whether they
be from the family or others, that tends to blight the joy,                              rest,

peace and calm of the home, that threatens to bring in even the
thin edge of the wedge of discord between husband and wife                             —that
interference should be silenced forever.                      The home should be a
sanctuary of refuge, not a battle-ground of discord                       ;   it   should be
a place     where the angel of love ever swings the censer of peace,
and calm, and happiness.
     ["The Incubus of Constant Faultfinding" is the title of the next chapter
in this series.]

                                   I   Would Not Know
                     I    would not know the measure of today
                       Lest blind, recursant I
                     Should seek to wile some potent hour away,
                       That pain would sanctify.

                     I    would not list the monQchord of fate
                          All erudite to be,
                      Lest     I   should cringe from anguish consummate,
                          And chortle to be free.

                      Of alchemy, to probe erstwhile, the end,
                          I   seek no whit of power
                      Suffice within    my micr.ocosm's trend.
                          To face each little hour.
                                                             Bertha A. Kleinman.
MESA, ARIZ.

<!-- page:310 -->

;

                                War
       1   feel thy scorching breath   upon my cheeks,
           demon god, that broodest o'er the world.
       Who, with the speed of maddened whirlwind, seeks
       To devastate the nations, to make faint,
       By hunger, thirst, that e'er thine allies are :

       And conflagration's cursed, swift-shod feet,
       Which were and ever are thy guiding star.
       1 feel    the wretched bane of thy caress,

       The vampire kiss that robs humanity,
       Throughout the ages, of her noblest, best,
       And leaves behind the venom of its sting
       Within the heart and soul of those bereft.
       Upon earth's vast expanse, I see a stain,
       A stain of crimson like unto a flood,
       Remembrancing the struggle and the pain
       Of those who upon thine altar placed their all,
       Obedient to thine insatiety.
       And now, I see a face peer 'tween the bars
       That hold it captive, hear the rythmic beat
       Of snowy pinions, flecked by sanguine wars
       And know that not 'til sound of tramping feet,
       Which marks thy minions, shall forever cease,
       Will angel hands, that rolled away the stone,
       Thrice bless the world by liberating Peace.
                                         Grace Ingles Frost.
WATERLOO, UTAH