--- 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, Levi Edgar collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 17 number: 12 published: 1914-10 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young, Levi Edgar, "“Mormonism” and the Modern Man", *Improvement Era* 17, no. 12 (October 1914): 1097–1107.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1712unse 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: improvementera1712unse start_page: 1097 end_page: 1107 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1914-10) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1712unse 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. --- # “Mormonism” and the Modern Man Improvement Era Vol. XVII OCTOBER, 1914 No. 12 "Mormonism" and the Modern Man BY LEVI EDGAR YOUNG, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH The expression "modern man" is used today in all walks of life. While it may have originated with the academician, it is used by the business man, the manufacturer, the politican, and professional man. I suppose were one asked to define the term, one might reply something like the following "He is- the 'modern man' who iscontrolled by the forces that are making tomorrow * * * and he is controlled by those ideals which are transforming his inherited world into the newer order which his children will inherit." This explanation is taken from Prof. Sha ler Mathews book : entitled, The Gospel and the Modem Man, and does, I believe, explain in a very general way what the expression means. But what are the forces that control the "modern man?" There can be no doubt but that all are agreed that the scientific development of the age which results in giving us good homes, the electric light, the automobile, the gas stove, good clothes, institutions of learning like the school, university, and art gallery, which are conducive to man's intellectual development, all these are some o*f the forces that are acting upon the "modern man" and making for the tomorrow. In our great age of advancement, we often hear it said that the "modern man" is not in sympathy with Jesus Christ. In fact, the twentieth century started out with a very growing tendency to deny the creeds of Christendom. And can there be any wonder at this denial of formal religion in the Christian countries of the world ? Thinking men have discovered that Christianity has not brought peace to the world, bj.it the sword. In the nineteenth century, the greatest century of the world's history, 14,000,000 men were killed in war in the Christian conn- 1098 IMPROVEMENT ERA tries of Europe alone. And as I write this sentence, it looks as if millions of men will be literally slaughtered in the great European conflict that is now raging. Yet all are professed Christian countries. Only recently the Rev. G. Monroe Royce, a famous Episcopal minister of New York, said : That Christianity continues to exist in the outward seeming is most true. True, there are still popes, patriarchs, bishops, missionaries, and thousands of churches where the Bible is read and prayers are said the year round. But if these popes, patriarchs, bishops, ministers, and churches all combined can not enforce upon the nations of the Christian world the first principles of the religion they profess, then it is perfectly evident that Christianity has broken — — down in practice, at least and the question presents itself to practical minds, why this waste of men and money upon a mere theory of life that is not workable; upon a mere sentiment which has no practical value. The modern world boasts of its efficiency, of its practical, utilitarian ability, and yet it is spending millions upon millions in the support of Christian churches, Christian ministers, Christian missionaries, whose sole reason for existing is that they undertake to persuade men and nations to live in harmony with the essential principles of Christianity, which are love of God and man. But the actual conduct and character of the Christian nations of the world at this moment, as revealed by the state of things in Europe, strip the churches and their ministers of all spiritual significance. To put it in plain language, it seems that they are not doing what they profess to do, and what they are paid for doing, and hence there is a vast waste of money and energy. — — Of course one does not expect outside of Utopia a condition of things where all mankind will live according to the laws of love; and moreover, did there actually txist such a state of things, popes, patriarchs, bishops, and churches would hardly be needed. But one has a right to expect that, after nineteen hundred years of civilization calling itself Christian, the church and her ministers — should have influence enough, power downright moral and spiritual — power enough to prevent the savage, the brute instincts of mankind dominating not only kings and other rulers, but the whole body of people composing the nations of Europe. This much we have a right to insist upon, and if the combined influence of all organized Christi- anity can not bring about such a result, then it is, I think, perfectly fair to conclude that the church machinery has broken down; that it does not do what it professes to do, and is not worthy the support it is receiving. Of course, I am acting upon the assumption that the people who support the Christian church do so with the expectation that it will not only teach the principles of Christianity as beautiful sentiments, but will insist that at least the fundamental principles of Christianity must be regarded as controlling forces by organized so- ciety, such as states. But it is not war alone that has kept the children of God from attaining to better standards of life. Poverty stalks far and wide, and thousands, yes millions, live their lives in a world of sin and sorrow. The verdict of course is that Christianity of the creeds has not made good. And why? I am reminded here of "MORMON1SM" AND THE MODERN MAN 1099 a very interesting" conversation that is carried on in Winston Churchill's The Inside of the Cup. The scene is a family group. The good mother sits with her children and grandchildren in an old English home, and the conversation has drifted to religion and the church. Various opinions are expressed as to why the church of today is not holding its people and giving them the real Christ. The old mother is the embodiment of Christian faith, while her ch ldren are more or less skeptical. During the conversation, the : daughter, Eleanor, says "Mother, dear, we don't want you to change. It's ourselves we wish to change, we wish for a religious faith like yours, only the same teaching which gave it to you is powerless for us. That's our trouble. We have only to look at you to know there is something vital in Christianity, if we could only get at it * * * George and men like him, can only show the weakness in the old supports. I don't mean that they aren't doing the world a service in revealing errors, but they cannot reconstruct." Now that is my position. The creeds of the world do help us to find our faults and errors in human society, "but they cannot reconstruct." Some degree of religious instinct is common to every child of God. Man is naturally a worshiper, and Christianity appeals to the "modern man" only as it is a construct force in human society. We are living in an age of inquiry and doubt. The youth of the world are thinking and speaking. Yet the human race will ever demand something in religion, for the race will ever suffer, and it is only religion, the comfort of God, that gives the heart light and happiness. Mr. Hugh Black has said, in a recent article in Everybody's: The first great fact to keep hold of is that religion is of the very nature of man. It is not something alien to him, or something en- forced on him, except by the necessities of his social life. The time has passed when it can be easily explained as the invention of priests, as some shallow thinkers used to declare. That is surely to put the cart before the horse. Priests do not create religion, but religion created the priests. Men are religious by nature, as they are rational and esthetic by nature. It does not mean that they are always religious or all alike religious, any more than they are always or all alike rational. When we call man esthetic, we do not mean that all men are born artists, though we may believe that all have some share of the faculty. When we call man religious, we mean that religion has its source in human nature and in human life. That is why religion is universal. Even somewhere, some time, a tribe of savages were to be if found without religion, it would only mean that a group were so far below the level of man, so inhuman, that they had no religion. Her- bert Spencer, with his candid mind, speaking of the universality of the religious feeling, says: "We are obliged to admit that it is as normal as any other faculty." 1100 IMPROVEMENT ERA Two great factors have moulded human history: the economic and the religious. Human society has ever tilled the ground, built homes, moved into new countries to acquire lands, and has ever known that "self preservation is the first law of nature." Rut with man's material pursuits have gone his intellectual ideals and higher motives in life. The Egyptians had high standards of morals and religious customs. The Greeks developed great economic virility, which was the basis of their civic life and government. Their high ideals are expressed in their art and literature. We read the "Prometheus Bound," of Aeschylus, today, with as much enthusiasm for its beauty and moral suggestions as we read a play of Hauptman or Maeterlinck. The Hindoo scriptures teach us most beautiful lessons of charity, and Confucius preaches sermons on righteousness in his short, but thoughtbearng sentences. The Indians in their most primitive conditions look to the Great Spirit, and after they have planted their corn in spring time, they hunt and fish, and carry on the pursuits of life, but at no time do they forget their religious rites nor their prayers and incantations to their god. Human nature changes little. In fact we are not removed very much from the ancient Greeks in ideals and attitude toward life. — While we have our new age the age of miracle in science, yet, fundamentally, the human family is still finding its best life in the worship of God and its greatest comfort in the knowledge of the divine mission of Jesus Christ. Richard Wagner, Germany's grand man of music, said one time, that Jesus Christ was more than wise. He was divine. Happy is the man who from childhood has been trained in religion. To know that we have a Redeemer, remains the greatest treasure of man. To throw away this precious faith shows our dependence on wild demagogs. :" Then note how Tennyson has sung in his "Memoriam Strong son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone embrace, Believing where we cannot prove. Thou seemest human and divine The highest, holiest manhood, thou: Our wills are ours, we know not how: Our wills are ours, to make them thine. Our little systems have their day: They have their day and cease to be; They are but broken lights of thee, And thou. O Lord, are more than they. It is man's high-mindedness, his spiritual self that craves a deeo toned religious life. So. as we live today in the world of creative forces, when our entire economic and social l fe is in- : "MORMONISM" AND THE MODERN MAN 1101 fluenced by forces we can not understand, so out of the complex thought of the age, man is destined to emerge a higher and nobler creature and a firmer beliver in God and his holy laws. If this be true, what is to be the religion of the future? The question cannot be answered in a few words, but I wish to emphasize some points which indicate that the gospel of Jesus Christ as taught by the "Mormon" people will be the religion of the future, and contains those elements that the thinking man is demanding for his lifeand his needs. Dr. Adolf Harnack, of the University of Berhn and a member of the Royal Prussian Academy, has recently written a book entitled What is Christianity? In this work, the author touches on a number of important religious subjects, but some of his sentences are striking. For example, he says "Religion truly does not exist for itself alone, but lives in the inner fellowship with all the activities of the mind, and with the moral and economic conditions as well. "Jesus had a strong conviction of the aggressive and forward character of his message. 'I am come to send fire on the earth, and what will I if it be already kindled?' The fire of the judgment and the forces of love were what he wanted to summon up, so as to create a new humanity. If he spoke of these forces of love in the simple manner corresponding to the conditions nearest at hand the feeding of the hungry, the clothing of the naked, the visiting of the sick and those in prison — it is nevertheless clear that a great inward transformation of the humanity which he saw in the mirror of the little nation in Palestine hovered before his eyes: 'One is your master, and all ye are brethren.' Further he was revealing the knowledge of God, and he was certain that it would ripen the young, strengthen the weak, and make them God's champions. Knowledge of God is the spring that is to fructify the barren field, and nour forth streams of living water. In this sense he spoke of it as the highest and the only necessary good, as the condition of all edification, and we may also say, of all growth and progress." In reading these sentences, one must infer that the learned German scholar reads into Christianity, as taught by the Master, a real controlhng ideal force that should guide the race in the solution of the great oroblems ever before mankind the economic : and the social. Herein I believe the creeds of Christendom have failed, during many hundreds of vears. Religion has been a sort of abstract l'fe and ideal that has had nothing much to do with the daily work and activities of man. Some hi=torians hav" argued, however, that because the church of the Middle Ages directed nations and oeonle in all l'nes of thought, little progress in civih'zation was made for a thousand years. There was a reason for this. It was because the Christian religion w'th the nower of its nriesthood was lost. Th-3 various churches lost their democracy, their ideals of equality which Christ taught. The "Mormon" people hold that the priesthood of God had 1!()2 IMPROVEMENT ERA to be restored to man by revelation. The conclusion is logical. When we assert that God opened the heavens to the Prophet Joseph Smith, and decalred unto him the specific truth that the relgion of Jesus Christ must be applied to the human race in all its activities in order that mankind might be directed back to God, he gave the world a new thought. We hold this to be a truth, which history indicates at least, that the entire psychic and social condition of the race in the beginning of the. nineteenth century, when society in its thought and aspirations was enterng a greater complex era, unknown to the world before, was demanding a new revelation from God. We do not hold that religion was foreign to the race. We do not hold that religion had been taken from the race, or that the race had completely discouraged it but ; we hold that religion had become so abstract that its application to modern society and the individual of today and yesterday is a thing of the past. I have reference to those fundamentals of the gospel of Jesus Christ known to the world as faith in God, repentance in the true sense of the term, and baptism, and the laying on of hands by one who has divine authority from Almighty God. The world is in need of the specific power of the Holy Ghost, which should be administered to men, through the priesthood of God. In other words, every man is eligible to it, providing he places h mself in : spirit and direct harmony with his Maker, and tries to understand, and to receive the l'ght of God through inspiration and revelation. To that man may be given the priesthood of God, which makes him a worker, a minister; and responsible to his God for his activities in life. The priesthood is common to God's children, and through the priesthood must man work his way back to God. Now again, "priesthood" with us is not "priestcraft." We mean by it the old Hebraic interpretation priesthood was the power : given to man by the great Jehovah, the inspiration, the power, and the light whereby man might unite his soul and spirit with his God. There is no power of anarchy, of imperialism, in it, in any sense of the term it is spiritual and common to all. This is why we feel that ; the gospel of Christ, properly understood, becomes the most democratic movement in the history of the world, because it takes hold of every one, high, low, rich, and poor, and makes him, responsible to his God to bring him back into the great fold of Christ. It is therefore the fundamental for ushering in the real brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of our eternal God. We hold that the gospel of Jesus Christ will never be done away with. We believe with Dr. Harnack, and with Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace, the greatest disciple of Charles Darwin that ever lived, with W:llhm James, the psychologist of Harvard university and the greatest American philosopher that ever lived, that until the race partakes aga n of the real spirit of manhood and truth as ex- : "MORMONISM" AND THE MODERN MAX 1 103 emplified in Jesus Christ, the race can never come to the goal that it is seeking. These truths are truths, and go to indicate that the world is in a sense coming back to a humble interpretation of Christ and him crucified, and that the race, one and all, from the Hindu, in far off Asia, to the blacks, in the far wilds of Africa all ; will ultimately be brought to a knowledge and a realization that every human being that lives is responsible to a higher law, every human being that lives must bring himself in harmony with his maker, whereby he may ultimately work out his destiny, and in the great ages beyond this age become like unto a God in power and in truth. The "modern man" is not going to do away with religion, but he is coming to demand that religion develops all of his best and noblest efforts to live and let live. He is asking for religion to really give him mental and moral uplift, a mental and moral uplift in which he shall become an active free agent. He wants to construct, to create, to be part and portion of the church. He sees that it is the church after all that gives him the best outlook on life, the surest and saner way of doing things. He knows that Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, or Spencer's First Principles, or Bergson's Creative Evolution can not give him comfort in the death of his children, or lift him to his better self in case he makes a blunder in life and falls by the way side. So he is asking for something tangible to show him his true relationship with nature and with God. "Mormonism" is going to answer his questions better than any other form of philosophy or system of religion in existence today. In the solution of the social problem alone "Mormonism" is setting an example that will yet be looked to as the highest and most practical standard for the moralizing of the "modern man." The creeds of Christendom have misssed the one great point of making man, individual man, responsible directly to his God. The democracy of Christ has been literally lost, and Christians have come to have more faith in preachers than in the true and living God, whom they profess to worship. I do not wish to infer that there is no sincerity in Christendom. People are sincere. But the criticism of the "modern man" is forcing Christianity into the back ground, for the creeds can not answer the questions of the day which the thinker is asking. Now if you have read Mr. Churchill's book, The Inside of the Cup, you will discover that this is the point Mr. Churchill makes. Religion has missed the point of directing man in his daily life, it has lost its utilitarian side altogether. For the Christian religion to be true it must be utilitarian. But above all, it must be idealistic, and I think the best thing you can say about a man is that he is a utilitarian-idealist, or that his religion is expressed in that daily activity and usefulness that is conducive to high-mindedness and an idealism among his children. This is 11(14 IMPROVEMENT ERA what we arc striving after in the stakes of Zion and the wards of the Latter-day Saints. We have in onr Mutual Improvement associat'ons alone some 65,000 boys and girls, registered members of literary societies, societies that say to the ordinary boy, "This work in preference to the street." There are nearly 700 wards, therefore nearly 700 societies; societies that say to our children, — "Here is the Hamlet of Shakespeare or here is a good story by S. Weir Mitchell instead of some cheap theatre of the town." We have been this year estimating that 65,000 boys and girls will study the novel which is said today by French critics to be the best work of French fiction of the 20th century. I refer to Henry Bordeau's Fear of Living. They will receive the lesson that M. Bordeau wishes to give to the race, viz.: that man must not be a coward, but must recognize the divinity of his soul, and, rising in his divinity and power, live before his God, as a worker, be aggressive, but aggressive in true manliness and in true manhood. This is what we are expressing socially by our religion. In every ward there are Sunday schools, Religion classes, and glo- riously above them all, "Mormonism" takes hold of the individual within the home, and it is the home that becomes the governmental unit in our religion. If one could go into "Mormon" homes, 40 or 50 miles from the railroad, one would find the best magazines, the best books and on Sunday morning one would find the family ; preparing for their da'ly service, to obey God on that day; and on the Monday morning, if every "Mormon" family is living as we hope it is living, the wife, the mother, the father, every child, kneel down before the throne of God and ask him to direct them through the days in the week in every activity, in every deed, in every word, and in every thought. So we go forth into the world with a knowledge that, through the power of the priest- hood which we claim to bear, we may manifest our religion, today, on the street, in every walk of life, following the vocations that we have, carrying it into every thought, and walking with it to and from our every day work. This is what Dr. Harnack means when he says the religion of Christ will only come back and be made wholesome and realistic and powerful when it comes with power into human society, into the thoughts of men and women, as the greatest force and light, to direct them in their economic, civic, social, intellectual, and ethical works in life and the religion that ; comes nearer to th s, to realize the dream of Berlin's great scholar, is the religion, I think, which is going to reckon with you and me. and with which you and I will have to reckon, and which is des- tined to appeal to the onward marching generation of the twentieth century, which we say must come to Christ and him crucified, and the glorious truths that he taught and stood for. But besides the aux liary organizations of the "Mormon" : Church, there are the still greater and more powerful organiza- "MORMONISM" AND THE MODERN MAN 1105 tions of the priesthood, which have enrolled practically every man of the Church. I will speak here of just one phase of the priesthood organization, the Seventy. There are over ten thousand seventies alone. They meet in the various ward meetinghouses of the Church once every week, at least. They have a regularly prescribed course of study, and every man becomes a student, not only of religion but of literature, history, and philosophy, etc. During one season alone, a year or two ago, the seventy were asked to obtain the following books for their season's study. Besides the regular Church works, including the Bible, they were advised to purchase Webster's Nczv Standard Dictionary of the English Language, William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, the works of Flavius Josephus, Dr. John Kitto's Cyclopedia of Bibical Literature Millman's Latin Christianity, Draper's Intellectual Development of Europe. Other noted works were also recommended. In the course of study, Andrew D. White's History of the Conflict of Science and Theology, Spencer's First Principles, Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy, and William James' Pragmatism, were freely quoted. The Seventy's courses of study alone indicate the high regard the "Mormon" people have for knowledge, and I have figures to show that the "Mormon" people today are the greatest readers of good literature, history, and philosophy of any other group of religious communicants living. I cannot give in detail the many organizations in the "Mormon" Church that require a constant intellectual and moral growth of the individual. The above statements can only indicate some of the intellectual activities. The love of the "Mormon" people for the drama and the power of the stage is known far and wide among the professional artists of the day, and it is only recently that Mr. M. B. Leavitt in his Fifty Years of Theatrical Management says: "Sweeping as the statement may seem, I do not believe that the theatre has ever rested upon a higher plane, both as to its purpose and its offerings, than at Salt Lake City, the capital of 'Mormondom'." And I have it direct from one of the world's greatest actors that the "Mormon" people have a higher appreciation of art and the world's best literature than any other people he had ever seen. But there is a reason for the high intellectual standards of the "Mormon" people. Here are some of their truths they firmly believe in and live by: "The Glory of God is Intelligence. "It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance. "Whatsoever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life will risewith us in the resurrection." "The elements [i. e. of matter] are eternal, yea, the elements are the tabernacle of God. Man is the tabernacle of God. even temples. "The elements are eternal; and spirit and element inseparably connected receive a fulness of joy. "Jesus was in the beginning with the Father. * * * Man 1106 IMPROVEMENT ERA was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of was not created or made neither indeed can be." truth, These are wonderful philosophic principles. They say to the "modern man" that he can only be saved as he develops his spirit and mind, for he can not be saved in ignorance, neither can he know the beauties of life and nature without the development of his intelligence. And in the idea that the body of man is divine, the "modern man" has a thought and ideal which will cause him to study his body and its needs, and adopt for his use only those foods that will be good for his body. He will become clean physically, and he can not deny that by physical cleanliness, he is greatly aided in his spiritual growth. The "modern man" who sees in the work of Jesus Christ a system of ethics unequalled by any other system in the world's history, is destined to inquire into the power of that system, whence it came, and what its future is to be. Knowing that the Christian world has failed to make good, and that mankind must needs come back again to the teachings of the lowly Nazarine, he will ask for the absolute teachings and discover that they will, as of old, be made known by and through divine interposition if they are to be known in the absolute again. While the "modern man'" will make great strides intellectually, during the twentieth century, he will discover to his advantage the thought of Dr. Harnack when he says "It is religion, the love of God and neighbor, which gives life a meaning; knowledge cannot do it. Pure knowledge is a glorious thing, and woe to the man who holds it light or blunts his senses for it. "But to the question, whence, whither, and to what purpose? it gives an answer today as little as it did two or three thousand years ago. It does, indeed, instruct us in facts; it detects inconsistencies; it links phenomena; it corrects the deceptions of sense and idea. But where and how the curve of the world, and the curve of our own life begin, and whither this curve leads, knowledge cannot tell us. But if, with a steady will, we affirm the forces and the standards which on the summit of our inner life shine out as our highest good, nay, as our real self; if we are earnest and courageous enough to accept them as the great reality and direct our lives to them, we shall not faint in weariness and despair, but become certain of God, whom Jesus Christ called his Father, and who is also our Father." If Christianity is to be restored in its purity, then it will come as it came before, by the visitation of God and of his holy messengers, who will speak his word adapted to our times, through prophets and seers. This is not primitive thought. It is modern. Note what Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace says in his last work, completed just before he died. Dr. Wallace was the greatest disciple of Charles Darwin that ever lived, in fact he and Darwin were co-workers. And the world of science puts Dr. Wallace "MORMON1SM" AND THE MODERN MAN 1107 among the foremost scholars of his day. This is what he says, and it is strictly in line with "Mormon" doctrine Some such conception seems to me to be in harmony with the — universal teaching of nature everywhere an almost infinite variety, not as a detailed design, but as a foreseen result ot the constitution of the universe. The vast whole is, therefore, a manifestation of — — his power perhaps of his very self but by the agency of his ministering angels, through many descending grades of intelligence and power. It is when we look upon man as being here for the very purpose of developing diversity and individuality, to be further advanced in a future life, that we see more clearly the whole object of our earthlife as a preparation for it. In this world we have the maximum of diversity produced, with a potential capacity for individual educabiljt y * * * only limited by the time at the disposal of each of us. Tn the spirit world, death will not cut short the period of educational advancement. The best conditions and opportunities will be afforded for continuous progress to a higher status, while all the diversities produced here will lead to an infinite variety, charm, and use, that could probably be brought about in no other way. Man will maintain his individuality forever, according to Dr. - Wallace, for this idea is the "best approximation we are now able to formulate as to the deeper, the more fundamental causes of matter and force, of life and consciousness, and of man himself at his best, already a little lower than the angels, and like them destined to a permanent progressive existence in a world of spirit." I have but indicated a few points in which "Mormonism" will yet satisfy the longings of the "modern man.'" One thing is certain. Orthodox Christianity has failed. It is only the new revelation of God to man that will satisfy the relig ous longings : of the race. WAR AND PEACE Villagers harvest, while soldiers dig trenches side by side with them the fields of Belgium.