Loud Laughter a Sin

:

Improvement Era

Vol. XVII MAY, 1914 No. 7

Loud Laughter a Sin

PROF. N. L. NELSON, OF THE WEBER ACADEMY.

"Therefore, cease from all your light speeches; from all laughter;

from all your lustful desires; from all your pride and light mindedness,

and from all your wicked doings. * * * Cast away your idle thoughts

and your excess of laughter far from you. * * * do these things with

thanksgiving, with cheerful hearts and countenances not with much

;

laughter, for this is sin, but with a glad heart and a cheerful counte-

nance."— Doc. and Cov., 88:121, 69; 59:15.

It is now forty years since I first read these passages and

wondered that the Lord should condemn so innocent and, to me,

so admirable a thing as hearty laughter. I am afraid that as a

boy the meaning of "glad heart and cheerful countenance," which

the Lord offers as a substitute, did not strike my attention, and

certainly no one ever pointed it out to me.I fear also that, by the

law of contrast, my mind jumped to the opposite extreme; inter-

preting as pleasing to heaven the groaning heart and the long,

—

drooping countenance like that of old Brother Moody and old

Sister Gloom who, although they were among the first to accept

"Mormonism," failed to slough and leave behind them in the old

country the sour and solemn shams of sectarianism.

As a consequence, the years from twelve to eighteen, which

mark the hoodlum epoch in my career, were years of rebellion

and defiance. I had not read Milton's "U Allegro," but had it

come within my ken, I should certainly have approved this stanza

"Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee

Jestand youthful Jolity,

Imps and cranks and wanton wiles,

Nods and becks and wreathed smiles, * * *

Sport that wrinkled care derides,

Laughter holding both his sides."

As it was, the hero of that silly epoch, the incarnation of my

;

614 IMPROVEMENT ERA

boyish idea of good-fellowship, was a certain rotund youth,

somewhat older than I, whose booming laughter on Morgan's cor-

ner reverberated to the farthest limits of the village, and was the

signal for the gathering of the "crowd," even at the expense of

chores, Sabbath meeting, Sunday schools, —

what not.

Then came three years at the Brigham Young Academy,

during which I gradually came to feel the meaning in Gold-

smith's fine phrase:

"The loud laugh which speaks the vacant mind."

And with that perception came back my child-reverence for

the word of God but while I thus learned to hold sacred again

;

the text that much laughter is sin, it was not true to me till it

became true by which statement, I desire merely to affirm that

;

no moral truth is true, merely because it is apprehended by the

intellect it becomes true only to the extent that it stirs the emo-

;

tions and energizes the will — to the extent that one feels the force

of its message, and is ready to help carry it out.

Now it is precisely because of this last consideration, viz., that

within very late years I have come to feel strongly on this subject,

that I am now writing this article in the sincere hope that it may

help the wave of reform already started in the direction of sup-

pressing loud laughter.

First, then, let us try to realize wherein the boisterous laugh

is sinful. Perhaps I cannot do better than tell how I came to see

the matter as I do today.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ declares that whoever

shall say to his brother, "Thou fool," shall be in danger of hell fire

and yet He himself did not hesitate to use the epithet on various

occasions. In like manner the expression is very common among

mankind today. "You precious little fool !" says the fond mother

in reproving her boy. "You poor, dear fool !" exclaims the young

lady, as she puts her arms around her reconciled lover. "Fool

that I was !" is the way we frequently castigate ourselves.

What then? Are these various persons in danger of hell fire?

Manifestly not. If there is no hell fire in the heart, then no man-

ner of word we may chance to utter is fated to help us along that

dismal journey. But suppose, "Thou fool" is the overflowing of

bitterness, and hate —or "thou devil, thou liar, thou skunk, thou

thief," or any other epithet: the particular kind of expression is

not material. The word then becomes the audible sign, the

index-finger, pointing to a negative soul, one that will not for-

give and for such a soul there is no other outcome than hell fire,

;

even though the heavens weep at his fall.

— —

And so of loud laughter. In the case let us say of Brother

—

Maeser, for among my delightful recollections of the great

teacher are two or three occasions when he went almost into

: —

LOUD LAUGHTER A SIN 615

convulsions,— the ringing laugh meant nothing worse than the

sweeping out of the dusty cobwebs of care and worry, and per-

haps a physical reinvigoration of his circulation from lungs to

finger tips. But allowing for such instances, as notable excep-

tions, what does the loud laugh stand for, as a rule?

"The vacant mind," says Goldsmith. But no vacant mind is

long empty— trust the devil for that. And therein lies the sin.

It is not the laugh but what it stands for — light mindedness, fri-

—

volity, coarseness, irreverence, in a word, the carnal or animal

—

plane of being, as contrasted with the spiritual, the spirit of

—

Babylon, as opposed to the spirit of Zion that comes under

condemnation. As elsewhere in holy writ, so also here, the Lord

does not name the neglected soil which is the real essence of the

evil, but selects for rebuke the tallest of the weeds which grow

out of it; weeds which overshadow and choke out the spiritual

virtues. For is not uncontrolled laughter the rampant note, the

almost invariable sign and accompaniment, of earthiness, where-

ever humans congregate

On the street corner, or other hoodlum rendezvous, and in the

saloon, human voices are coarsened by ribaldry, even as they are

first loosened by grog. Naturally all decent men and women con-

demn the excessive laughter of such places but what of the noise

;

and almost reckless abandon of our dances and other social gath-

erings?

"Perfectly innocent," you say. Perhaps so but even at that,

;

not very cultured, to judge only by human standards of conduct;

and when measured by the scriptural criterion of what a Latter-

day Saint gathering should be, they all come under the condem-

nation, quoted at the head of this article.

flaunting, unrestrained—is both solo and chorus

Pleasure garish,

you shall listen

:

—

in vain for the subdued, spiritual pulsations of joy.

It is, of course, to be expected that the secular schools in our

midst will reflect young America in all its rudeness and rowdy-

ness — and we are not disappointed. If our Church schools have

one distinctive mission, it is to restrain and subordinate this ob-

streperous naturalness to the gentleness and subdued refinement

of the spiritual.

Do they succeed? Let us be charitable, and say they try. As

a matter of fact, worldliness reigns there all but supreme

mainly, perhaps, because worldliness enters under almost every

cap and hood. Babylon, so far from being absent, surges in, both

—

by doors and windows, and occasionally as at basket-ball meets

— Pandemonium ! But of this aspect of my theme, I shall have

something to say in another article.

There remain for consideration our Sabbath meetings. Here,

surely, if anywhere, we might rest content to let "good-enough

alone !" Where else in all the world shall we find evidence in

—

616 IMPROVEMENT ERA

congregations of so vital, so living a faith -congregations made

up equally of men and women, old and young? And as to our

Sunday school system, it is pretty safe to affirm that it has no peer

in all the world.

But the nde of "letting good-enough alone," finds no place

in the economy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The emphasis may shift now to this branch of endeavor, now to

that but all alike are amenable to the law of eternal progress.

:

Moreover, it is precisely this aspect, our Sabbath gatherings,

that is the objective point of my essay.

There was a time within my memory when the condemna-

tion of the Lord as to excessive laughter and kindred conduct,

was applicable, in its rawest sense, both to our Sabbath meetings

and to our Sunday schools. Since then we have made notable

progress. We are even making headway in subduing levity

among the young, as expressed in gum-chewing, giggling, nudg-

ing and so on. In many of our churches, the audible talk indulged

in before and after services, is being subdued to whispers and ;

are there a few houses of worship where it has ceased altogether?

One might well travel a hundred miles to be present and feel the

sensation of such a religious assembly!

In our Sunday schools, it would probably be asking too much

of self-restraint, to expect the reverential silence and decorum be-

longing to the Sabbath day. These youngsters are full of wrig-

gling, squirming, bubbling ideas which, apparently, must find

vent, especially during pauses in the exercises.

But what of grown-ups, to whom silence is surely not a hard-

ship? Do such questions as these need to pass in a worshiping

assembly? "How is your wife and family? Heard lately from

the missionary? How

are your beets coming on? Got plenty

of water down your way? How

many turkeys are you hatching?

Say, what about that joke on Bill Brown?" and so on.

Of course, no harm is meant, and morally no harm is done.

On the contrary, measured by human standards, such communica-

tions are born out of pure neighborliness, and do much to cement

good feeling in a community. The sin, if sin there be, is against

the spirit of the Sabbath day. It is merely that of the social

spirit obtruding upon and completely overshadowing the religious.

Tt seems hard to affirm such a thing, but really, "visiting" in

the Lord's house on the Sabbath day is the same sin which, un-

restrained, flaunts itself during week days in unseemliness and

loud laughter the same old weed of worldliness, not uprooted,

;

merely hacked off, and ready to grow more lusty with all the vi-

tality of its tribe. In other words, it is the complete absence of

the feeling, "This is a sacred day —

this is a holy place!" the com-

pl te absence of the wonder, reverence, and awe which Moses

felt in the presence of the burning bush. Where the spirit of

!

LOUD LAUGHTER A SIX 617

Wednesday so prevades the Church on Sunday, no. singing by the

choir however soulful, no invocation however fervent, no sacra-

mental service however appealing toward Gethsemane, no ser-

—

mon however warm and eloquent, will serve to bring us out of

the world and into the Kingdom of God for the simple reason

;

that all the services are under the same handicap as the worship-

ers — the blighting spirit of worldliness.

Are you convinced, gentle reader? Have I interpreted justly

the words quoted at the head of this article? If what I have urged

is merely clear to your mind, then the Lord's condemnation of

laughter is not yet true to you. If in your bosom there is the faint-

est ghost of remonstrance, such as "Well, I don't believe in be-

:

ing long-faced —

I believe in being natural on Sundays" then, —

though your intellect may have been reached, yet deep down in

your soul you do not yet believe it is true.

Let me therefore try again :

"Man is," says the Book of Mormon, "that he may have

joy." Here in seven words we have the meaning and purpose of

life. A hundred volumes in theology and philosophy could not

make it plainer and were the divinity of this book challenged, I

;

should content myself by quoting these seven words in refuta-

tion.

Man was born into pre-existence, and born again into mortal

probation, and is to be born anew into spiritual life, in short, is —

—

now passing the cycle between the eternities for one sole pur-

pose, that he may have joy. If, therefore, he fails ultimately to

get joy, he is a spiritual bankrupt —

a stalk of wheat that promise 1

well, but ended in smut

Please note that the Lord says nothing of pleasure. He

neither affirms it as good, nor denies it as evil. Pleasure is, in-

deed, innocent in itself but it contributes powerfully to the salva-

;

tion or the damnation of man, according as it is used rightly or

abused. Pleasure may be compared to the greenness or succulence

common to two stalks of wheat growing side by side ; in one case

yielding a full, golden-headed fruitage of life, in the other cul-

minating in the smut of license, sin, and death.

We have here, then, two ideas which, though somewhat re-

lated in meaning, are yet as distinctly different "as the spirit and

the body. I care not that the dictionary makes joy and pleasure

—

overlap let the lexicographer take his place behind the thinker.

Joy is the spirit animating the "glad heart and cheerful coun-

tenance," just as pleasure is the spirit behind loud laughter. And

— let us not forget —

man is, that he may have joy.

—

Joy is one of the gifts of the Spirit the second of the trinity.

love, joy, peace. It is, therefore, of the essence of spirit, and

warms and cheers the soul, even as its coarser counterpart runs

riot through the body. Joy may be defined as the exhilaration we

— ;

:

618 IMPROVEMENT ERA

experience whenever, through our own inner exertion, we feel

ourselves rising. Pleasure is the sensation we feel on letting

and faffing. Joy has been well called the truth-surprise,

for it attends every achievement over obstacles, whether physical,

int llcctual. moral, social, or spiritual, and invariably involves

serf-sacrifice, cither in the nature of soul-exertion, or of self-de-

nial, or self-crucifixion. Pleasure, on the contrary, comes some-

times from' the absence of self-sacrifice, in which case we call it

ease or from the active gratification of self, when we call it in-

;

dulgence.

"

Measured by intensity and duration, the contrast is still

greater. Pleasure is transitory at best, and if over indulged, leads

quickly to satiety and disgust.

"For pleasures are like poppies spread,

Ycu seize the flower, the bloom is shed.

Or like the snow falls in the river,

A moment white, then gone forever."

Joy, on the contrary, is cummulative and eternal. It begins

to warm and cheer with our first conquest of self, and continues

to grow brighter till the soul becomes self-radiant. Joy is conse-

quent^ both the incentive and the reward of virtue and the meas- ;

ure of our joy is the measure of Heaven within us, as surely as the

light in the bulb measures the current.

Consider, then, these two lines of incentive: joy on the one

side appealing to the soul and license on the other, appealing to

;

the body with pleasure between the two, feeding each or either

;

according to the attitude of the mind. While there is soul-com-

munion direct with the great Source of all joy, yet on the whole

to taboo pleasure in order to. enhance joy is to make the mistake

of the hermit, — mistake which yields only asceticism (or

a vini-

garism) on the other hand, to make pleasure an end in itself, is

;

forever to lose joy, and win only the apples of Sodom in the

2nd.

Pleasure was surely intended by the Lord to be used rightly

which means that it must at every step be transmuted into joy

for instance, the pleasures of eating and drinking must stop the

moment they subserve the joy of health and physical achievement,

and the pleasures of rest, when power to work is restored. So also

the pleasures of sex —

confessedly the greatest of all pleasures

must yield to and be transmuted into the joy of offspring.

Moreover, all pleasures should yield to and be tempered by the

joy of gratitude to the Giver of all life.

It follows, therefore, that joy, not pleasure, must ever be

the measure and criterion of what man may do and yet retain

the benediction of Heaven. Now the most unalloyed of all joys is

one not related in any manner to pleasure. I refer to the joy of

; ;

LOUD LAUGHTER A SIX 619

spiritual communion. This is the joy experienced in the Temple

of the Lord. It is the joy we should also feel in every Sabbath

meeting.

"If thine eye be single [to the glory of God] thy body shall

be full of light," —

there is the formula for winning this joy; a

formula that can no more fail than can light to enter a house, if

the blind is drawn.

Perhaps it would be expecting too much to hope for a joy in

Sabbath services as deep and soul-satisfying as that which one

feels in the Temple but the reason lies in our worldliness, not in

;

God's unwillingness to bless us.

It is matchless joy, this silent communion with the

this

we should get before all things else on the Sabbath

Infinite, that

day. To realize how far we fall short of our privileges and bless-

ings —

how far we have substituted mere worldly sociability for

the atmosphere of Heaven itself, we have only to read what the

Lord says about the proper observance of the Sabbath day:

"Thou shalt offer a sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in righteousness,

even that of a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

"And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the

world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments

upon my holy day;

"For verily this is a day appointed unto you to rest from your

labors, and to pay thy devotions unto the Most High ;

"Nevertheless thy vows shall be offered up in righteousness on all

days and at all times

"But remember that on this the Lord's day, thou shalt offer thine

oblations and thy sacraments unto the Most High, confessing thy sins

unto thy brethren, and before the Lord.

"And on this day thou shalt do none other thing, only let thy food

be prepared with singleness of heart that thy fasting may be perfect, or,

in other words, that thy joy may be full.

"Verily, this is fasting and prayer; or in other words, rejoicing and

prayer.

"And inasmuch as ye do these things with thanksgiving, with cheer-

ful hearts and countenances not with much laughter, for this is sin,

;

but with a glad heart and a cheerful countenance;

"Verily I say, that inasmuch as ye do this, the fulness of the earth

is yours."

Permit me to emphasize the joy aspect of this fine passage.

On the Sabbath day, no work is to be done, save only the prepar-

ing of food and this is to be done so simply as to be purely me-

;

chanical i. e., as not to break into our "singleness of heart" to-

;

ward God, or the silent communion of our spirits with the Source

of all joy and peace. Such undivided communion is called "per-

fect fasting;" that is to say, the complete absence of worldliness

or the pleasure-aspect of life. It is also called "fasting and prayer

in other words, rejoicing and prayer."

It is this spiritualized rejoicing and prayer, this pure joy

620 IMPROVEMENT ERA

borne in upon our hearts, as if the Lord's house were filled with

the subtle aroma of Heaven's own atmosphere, that is sometimes

so sadly wanting in our meetings, and ever will he, until a deeper

reverence for the day and the place shall fill our hearts.

How shall we begin to make the change?

First, let every secular gathering, political or social, — every

noisy or worldly conclave, —

be provided for in a separate hall,

that when we enter the sacred portals of our houses of worship,

we shall not be surrounded by unhallowed ghosts of what was

said and done upon a recent occasion.

In the second place, make the Church beautiful, and keep

it scrupulously clean. With paint and kalsomine, wipe out the

last fingermark of levity and irreverence let the walls and the

;

furniture overawe with their very chasteness the ribald and

the vandal. Where paint and jack-plane fail to obliterate the

past, let new furniture be put in. Let every aisle be carpeted,

every window furnished with shade or curtain. Burn all the

marred and tattered songbooks, and let the organ be the best and

the richest-toned in the ward. Remove all pictures from the

walls, save those with deep, earnest motives.

Nor should the outside be less carefully looked after. Let a

neat fence enclose the Church, and let no broken picket remain

beyond a week. Let lawns, shrubs and trees take the place of

the weeds and unspeakables, which now too often litter the yard.

Let the toilets be immaculate, even if they must be scrubbed and

white-washed daily.

But, thank the Lord, there is already less and less need in

Zion for such admonitions.

The other aspect of reverence is more serious, for it per-

tains to ourselves, the worshipers. If we are really living the

devout lives we have covenanted to live, it will be a very easy

matter to subdue an idle habit of worldliness in manner and

speech on the Sababth day. And, even though we lack the emo-

tion of reverence, yet, if we feel a desire to gain this power, we

can all assume the outward mien of it, with but little inconveni-

ence and such is the interchangeableness of attitude and emotion,

;

that by earnestly praying in our own hearts while we wait for

the services to begin, we shall soon, to our joy, discover that the

reverential attitude, which at first we assumed mechanically,

has ceased to be hollow, and is and almost palpi-

really full of,

tating with, a true spirit of devotion. So shall our hearts taste joy,

the elixir of heaven, so shall we be near to and feel the presence

of the Church of the First-born; so shall the hallowed feeling

which now comes to us in the Temple, also be felt in the humblest

of our houses of worship.

OGDEN, UTAH