---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Minerva Pinkerton
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 18
number: 5
published: 1915-03
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Minerva Pinkerton, "My Prayer," *Improvement Era* 18, no. 5 (March 1915): 393.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1805unse
  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: improvementera1805unse
start_page: 393
end_page: 393
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1915-03)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1805unse
  publication_year: 1915
  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 1915, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# My Prayer

<!-- page:393 -->

THE PROPHET'S LAST LETTERS                         393

proud this Mr. Brower ought to be to have his name preserved in
this connection
     In this dying declaration, for as such it may be regarded, the
Prophet denies the charge of treason that had been made against
him and asserts that even the appearance of any thing of the
       ;

kind could not be proved. He assures his wife that no harm can
happen to him or his fellow prisoners on that score. How abund-
antly has the truth of all this been established  Not on the score
                                                       !

of any legal conviction of treason or any other crime did harm
come to them.
     How rich in food for reflection these two letters are I am     !

glad to place them on record in the pages of the Improvement
Era, and do so in the firm belief that some future commentator
will show the strength, beauty and grandeur of the man who wrote
them far more adequately than I have power to do.

                                 My Prayer
            My prayer is not for power, but for strength
             To bear the ills that now beset my way;
              That I may struggle onward, day by day,
            And rest beside the Master's throne, at length.
                Ipray not, "Make me rich," but, "Make me strong,
                  That I may find true riches here below
                  Which I may carry with me when I go,
                And bear them to my Maker, with a song."
                I   ask not, "Take me," but, "Show me the way
                    By which the Savior passed to realms above;
                  That I may follow in this way of love
                And kneel before his throne, some happy day.
                "That, should   I   have my thorns and cross to bear,
                    Thy Spirit, Lord, will help and comfort me,
                    Will guide me, teach me to become like Thee,"
                This, then, shall be my hope, my life, my prayer.
                                                     Minerva Pinkerton
redmesa, col.