--- 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: 17 number: 6 published: 1914-04 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* 17, no. 6 (April 1914): 501." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera176unse 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: improvementera176unse start_page: 501 end_page: 501 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1914-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera176unse publication_year: 1914 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 1914, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Sermonets SERMONETS Education is the cheap defense of nations. — Burke. Many would come to wisdom if they did not think themselves already there. — Bacon. The use of character, is to be a shield against calumny. — Burke. "Without the Way, there is no going; Without the Truth, there is no knowing; Without the Life, there is no living." Thomas a'Kempis. Home religion is as important as personal religion, and is essential to it. The relationship between parents and children grows pure and dear when they all kneel together and ask the peace of God to rest on their home. Many of us remember the dear old days when at the family altar morning and evening prayers were offered together, and the Sunday evening hour, when we sang hymns, each choosing his favorite.— Dr. F. IV. Tompkins. One man walks solemnly, with puckered brow and eyes cast down, thinking of a thousand frets, dreading tomorrow, and regretting yesterday. Another laughs and whistles, careless in every step and gesture, looking at the trees and the flowers, and the white clouds and the blue sky — looking, above all, at human faces, and making them smile back at him. Which of these men do you think is the wiser? Which is more like you? — Youth's Companion. What a tribute to the character of Washington is the recent government survey of the old Fairfax land grants! The sixteen-year-old boy worked under conditions so primitive that mistakes would have been excusable, and in a wilderness so remote that in any case they would hardly have been detected for generations; yet the recent survey of the land, made with the finest modern instruments, has failed to disclose any appreciable error in his work. They say the cherry-tree anecdote is a myth. Let it go; we do not need it. Washington's whole life shows that he ran his lines by the compass of character. — Youth's Companion.