---
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: 18
number: 2
published: 1914-12
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "The Teacher: Was Christ a Genius?", *Improvement Era* 18, no. 2 (December 1914): 135.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1802unse
  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: improvementera1802unse
start_page: 135
end_page: 135
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1914-12)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1802unse
  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.
---

# The Teacher: Was Christ a Genius?

<!-- page:135 -->

—

                          The Teacher
       Was Christ a genius? Putting aside, for argument's
 sake, the claim to Immaculate Conception,
                                             that of Divine
 Origin, of the performance of miracles, and rising from the
 dead, and looking upon the Son of Man merely from the
•worldly standpoint, the human measurement of greatness,
 let us ask again, Was Christ a genius ? Where does he stand
in purity and beauty of purpose, in magnificence and
grandeur of achievement, among the greatest ones of earth
those who have filled the ages with their renown?
     Among certain of the modern psychologists, Jesus of
Nazareth has been denied a place as a Superman. He was
not a Compeller. He is debased among the pseudo-emotional
geniuses. He did not take the sword, he led no cohorts, he
left no battle-fields, he did not stain the earth with blood.
The logic which gives to Mohammed a place among the
greatest geniuses of the earth denies the same to the Gentle
Teacher   ! What They, the masters of war, must be given
                  !

the first place, and he, the Prince of P.eace, only a second ?
Shall we so disparage the Inspired One who spoke the Parables, who taught the Lord's Prayer, and preached the Sermon on the Mount? who wept with emotion over the sins
of Jerusalem, saying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that
killest the prophets and stonest them which art sent unto
thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together
even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and
ye would not"?
      Caesar reached to the height of his ambition and met
Brutus; Napoleon willed the subjugation of Europe, and
      —
found St. Helena Christ desired the redemption of the
                      ;

              —
world and suffered on the Cross. Whose labors shall affect
most the destinies of mankind? He who believed in the use
of the sword, the power of the greatest cannon, or the One
who believed in the potency of the gentle word ?
      "They that take the sword shall perish with the sword."
Hasten the day when there shall be no more the clash of
arms, the flow of blood, the glare of flames!  Rameses, Nimrod, Xerxes, Belshazzar, Alexander, Hannibal, Csesar, Attila,
Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, Charlemagne, Charles V, these
and their deeds shall pass away, and so the moderns. And
yet shall come the Light of which Christ was the dawn!

                                    Alfred Lam bourne