--- 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: 16 number: 6 published: 1913-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Sermonets," *Improvement Era* 16, no. 6 (April 1913): 556–557.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1606unse 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: improvementera1606unse start_page: 556 end_page: 557 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1913-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1606unse 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. --- # Sermonets SERMONETS When his satanic majesty hasn't anything else to do, he teaches a woman to smoke cigarettes. Cater to the brute in you, and you will keep calling out more brute; cater to the divine, and you will kill the brute. There are some characters who carry their wealth with them, who are rich without money. They do not need palatial homes or a large bank account. They do not need to buy admission to society,— everybody loves them. They are welcome everywhere because they have that which money can — not buy a genial, helpful, sunny, cheerful disposition. Of course, everybody wants them, because it is a joy to be with them. Everybody loves the sunshine and hates the shadows and the gloom. There is no bank account that can balance a sweet, gracious personality; no material wealth can match a sunny heart, an ability to radiate helpfulness and sweetness. But such graces and charms never live with selfishness or self-seeking. It is the people who have something to give, not who are trying to get something, that are wanted everywhere. Youth's Companion. The Best Incentive is the Love of the Work. —"Real literature has never been paid for. It has never asked the gold nor the plaudits of the multitude. Job and Hamlet and Faust and Lear were never written to fill the pages of a Sunday newspaper. John Milton and John Bunyan were not publishers' hacks. "No man was hired to find out that the world was round, ***** that living organisms fill the fading leaf, or that valleys are worn down by water, or that the stars are suns. No man was ever paid to burn at the stake or die on the cross that other men might be free to live. The same, strong, heroic souls of all ages were the men who in the natural- order of things, have lived above all considerations of pay or glory. They have not served as slaves taking reward, but as gods who would take no reward. Men could not reward Shakespeare or Darwin, or Newton, or Helmholtz for their services any more than we could pay the Lord for the use of his sunshine." David Starr Jordan. — — — —