---
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: 9
published: 1914-07
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. 9 (July 1914): 805–806.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1709unse
  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: improvementera1709unse
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1914-07)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1709unse
  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

——

Seimonets

"Take care that you judge no life by external evidences,

The sources         lie   so   deep that only the loving, sympathetic,

helpful eyes of the Father  may penetrate so far. And some-

times the loveliest flowers of development are hidden, for the

time     being,     in    an outer envelope       as   unattractive      as   the

screen     of the    pond-lily,    pushes its way into bloom

before   it

and fragrance.      Frequently the golden-hearted, the  most

beautiful characters, have a season of forcing through such

bitterly    hard     conditions,     that   the   stress    may   very    easily

awaken repugnance in the minds of those observers who do

not understand."

"In time to come all the people of the nation will be col-

lege graduates.   Must we not then as now eat, dress, have

places of shelter and methods of keeping clean?        The old

idea, and the idea which prevails to some extent now, that

a man with a college degree cannot take up one of the so-

called common tasks is leading the nation to civil strife. We

must teach from the beginning that there is dignity in so-

called common tasks, just as in the professional tasks.

"There is no more divinity in looking at the stars or heal-

ing the sick than in hoeing a row of potatoes. We must get

the idea of industrial education into the grade schools and

begin there to overcome some of the false ideas which now

prevail about the common tasks of life." Dr. John A. Widtsoe.

We stand alone and as           it   were blindfolded, surrounded

upon all sides by unknown thresholds, afraid to hope, afraid

to fear, knowing only this, that at each forward step the

doors are opened for us; ways are made, our burdens are

lifted by some great unknown law or power whose purpose

we are powerless to fathom. And here upon this threshold wt

wait for the doors to open, feeling that the load is too heavy,

helpers too few, sometimes discouraged, when our grief is

strong, and our joy weak, and years and days are so long.

And yet we know that the changeless laws of the Almighty

will come to our relief, and good will take the place of ill;

and knowing this, the words, "Not as I will" grow sweet

and still .sweeter each time our lips or our hearts repeat them.

And when this blessed thought steals over us like a whis-

pered voice to bless and calm all the loneliness and unrest

of our souls, we feel to say, even more and more earnestiy,

knowing that we but follow One who has trodden the path

before, "Not our will but Thine be done." George D. Kirby.