--- 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, Newel K. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 18 number: 11 published: 1915-09 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young, Newel K., "Man Sent of God," *Improvement Era* 18, no. 11 (September 1915): 969–972.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera18011unse 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: improvementera18011unse start_page: 969 end_page: 972 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1915-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera18011unse 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. --- # Man Sent of God Man Sent of God* BY NEWEL K. YOUNG, NORTH DAVIS STAKE Jesus went down from Nazareth to Jerusalem with Joseph and Mary to attend the Passover. After the feast the parents started home with their kindred and neighbors. At the close of the first day's journey, they found the boy missing; alarmed and sorrowing they returned, and after three days of anxious, fearful searching they found their twelve-year-old son in the temple talk- ing with the priests and teach- ers there. His mother gently but firmly reproved him say- ing, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold thy father and I sought thee sor- rowing." Note his reply, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" This wonderful answer clearly reveals that he was deeply imbued with the pur- pose of his earthly mission, Already his soul was awak- ened to the divine responsibil- ity of protection for others, a responsibility that is the very essence of manhood. Even then he felt that he was his brother's keeper. These significant words, spoken by a mere child, give us a true index to the mean- ing of Luke's short account of the boyhood of the Son of God : "And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." The earnestness and high purpose born of the noble conviction that he was sent into the world to do his Father's business were the life of the enthusiasm and inspiration which led him onward and upward to the highest destiny. Every child should feel that he is a child of promise. Only NEWEL K. YOUNG *This oration won second place in the Advanced Senior contest, M. I. A. conference, June, 1915. so can he grow to the full measure of his manhood, and do his full part of the Father's business. The Father's work in this world lags and is slow in the doing-, because his sons do not all feel that they are sent to do his will. Once the boy's heart is fired with the testimony that God called and sent him here to do the Father's bidding, he will begin to rise to the high place in manhood's realm to which his divine sonship entitles him ; and thus will he do his part of God's work. This will plant his feet firmly in the path of duty ; it will save him in the hour of temptation, and hearten him during the night- time of discouragement ; it will guide him through the darkness of doubt, and keep him humble in the day of his prosperity and victory ; thus leading him in the way of life until he attains the strength of the clean and pure. We see that to be sent leads at once to accountability to the sender, God, for work of life entrusted. How this humbles and steadies one until his soul is imbued through and through with true reverence, the very fear of God, which fear is the seed that bears a harvest of faithfulness, an unyielding devotion to duty. The conviction of "divine calling" is no less a power to sus- tain the man in the work, the struggles, and the sorrows of man- hood, than it is to inspire the boy. In John's graphic account of the "Last Supper" Christ gives us his real prayer — the outpour- ing of his great heart for the cause for which he had lived, and for which he was about to die. It may fittingly be called his ded- ication of that cause and of the men into whose hands he was com- mitting his life's work. At the beginning and close of this event- ful prayer he mentions the source and authority of his mortal mission. Then, again, note that wonderful scene in the "garden," where Jesus had gone with his few chosen friends after this last supper and prayer, to the most vital struggle of the ages — the struggle upon which depended the redemption and salvation of the world. During the bloody sweat of such suffering as no other has ever borne, he turned to the Father, who sent him on his earth-mission, as the unfailing source of his help, as much as the judge of his work, and found comfort and strength to endure and go on by uniting his purpose with the eternal purpose of that Father. Thus in very deed becoming a full partner in co-opera- tion with God for the salvation of man. How fully he became our Keeper, our Friend, our Savior ! What else does his noble prayer, "Thy will be done," then and there, mean but this manly, yes, Godly recognition of the righteous authority of the One who sent him. Thus only could he be in the fullest measure the Son ; thus only may we inherit the fulness of our Sonship. In the life of our Prophet Joseph, in the marked influence that the noble conviction that he was sent of God had upon his whole life, we have an example that closely parallels that of the Master. It shaped the hopes and ideals of his boyhood, guided him in the way of truth, chastened him to purity in youth, and determined his devotions and godliness in manhood. This sense of being sent into the world, divinely called to one's life-work, has not been confined to prophets or religious leaders alone. Washington bore suggestive witness that he must render accountability for his leadership to a higher power than man. He went to God for help in his stupendous task, and felt responsible to him for its successful accomplishment. A living faith that he was destined to do great things was made part of Lincoln's every day life in his childhood ; and the marks of this influence are seen throughout his remarkable career. In the hardest and darkest hours of the rebellion, he went to God for the strength and wisdom needed to save the Union. During twenty years of close association, as friend and teacher, with our boys and girls just budding into manhood and womanhood, I have often listened to their hopeful, stirring words ^f Hfe that came from hearts beating strong with the feeling that they were sent here each to do his special work. They were all imbued with the thought that God sent them to do some good, big work. Yes, I believe this feeling is an instinct planted of God, deeply rooted in life, even one of the abiding sources of life and character. The oeasant and the king, the unlettered son of toil and the scholar, the youth and the tried man of many vears, the true man suffering defeat and failure, and the man of achieve- ment, all bear witness to the mightv influence of the feeling- of being divinely called. In 1913. before Columbia University, Pres. Henry Churchill Kins: spoke these words : "Still, so far as I can see, the essential fact of accountability forever abides. I can not resist the sense of calling, of divine vocation so in- volved. These plain facts of my nature themselves make me feel that in some high sense I am sent into the world." I feel this sense of divine calling ; vou feel it ; all who have attained, in anv high degree their manhood feel it; everywhere and always, all who have been dominated by the deep conviction that thev are partners with God in the accomplishment of his great plans, feel it. We are a blessed people in that we are not left to the wit- ness of our God-given instincts and abiding impulses, nor the evidence of reason alone, for we have had revealed to ^ us, through our own prophet, in certaintv, that we are so sent into the world of God as messengers of salvation. Just now, when all the world is shadowed by a deep sorrow, and most people everywhere are disturbed and shaken in their lives by the terrible world-war, can any son of "Mormondom," bearing the priesthood, escape the call of God to stand firm and unafraid before the world as a messenger of peace and truth and justice? patiently and faithfully to await and help on the "Salvation of Our God" for all people? May we attain true fellowship with the Master, in the power to help every youth to feel with every fiber of his being that God sent him into the world to serve and share in the work ot salvation. God bless us to stand in strength, like one of old, and «ay, "As God lives, and as we live, we will not return unto our Father, until we have done the work for which we were sent." KAYSVILLE, UTAH To My Successor Here is a toast I want to drink to a fellow I'll never know — ■ To the fellow who's going to take my place when it's time for me to go. I've wondered what kind of a chap he'll be and I've wished I could take his hand, Jr.st to whisper, "I wish you well, old man," in a way that he'd under- stand. I'd like to give him the cheering word that I've longed at times to hear; I'd like to give him the warm hand clasp when never a friend seems near. I've learned my knowledge by sheer hard work, and I wish I could pass it on To the fellow who'll come to take my place some day when I am gone. Will he see all the sad mistakes I've made and not all the battles lost? Will he ever guess of the tears they caused or the heartaches which they cost? Will he gaze through the failures and fruitless toil to the underlying plan, And catch a glimpse of the real intent and the heart of the vanquished man? I dare to hope he may pause some day as he toils as I have wrought, And gain some strength for his weary task from the battles which I have fought, But I've only the task itself to leave with the cares for him to face, And never a cheering word may speak to the fellow who'll take my place. Then here's to your health, old chap; I drink as a bridegroom to his bride; I leave an unfinished task to you, but God knows how I tried. I've dreamed my dreams as all men do, but never a one came true, And my prayer today is that all the dreams may be realized by you, And we'll meet some day in the great unknown — out in the realms of space; You'll know my clasp as I take your hand and gaze in your tired face. Then all your failures will be success, in the light of the new found dawn, — So I'm drinking your health, old man, who'll take my place when I'm gone! — Lake Worth Herald — Tom Cordry.