Editors' Table: Elder Stephen L. Richards

Elder Stephen L. Richards

Stephen L. Richards was nominated by President Joseph F. Smith, unanimously sustained by the Council as a member of the Council of Twelve, and ordained an apostle by President Joseph F. Smith, on Thursday, January 18, 1917. Elder Stephen L. Richards was born June 18, 1879, at Mendon, Cache county, and is the son of Dr. Stephen Longstroth Richards and Emma Louisa Stayner Richards. He is a grandson of Willard Richards, who was with Joseph the prophet at the martyrdom, and who was one of the early pioneers of Utah; and of Arthur Stayner, a man of business affairs in the early history of the West, and the man to whom the establishment of sugar works in Utah is largely indebted. Elder Richards, who has held all the offices in the priesthood except Seventy, from the first has taken great interest in Church activities, having worked in the Sugar House ward in both the Sunday School and Y. M. M. I. A., and as a member of the choir and as ward teacher. In Pleasant View, and Malad, Idaho, he acted as Sunday School teacher; also in Malad as superintendent of the Religion Class. While studying law at Ann Arbor, Michigan, and at Chicago, he took active part with students and members of the Church in religious work. In the Granite and Salt Lake stakes he acted as stake aid in the Y. M. M. I. A., as teacher in the 17th ward Sunday school, and in the latter stake as assistant superintendent of Sunday schools. While a resident of Murray, Salt Lake county, he was a member of the building committee, and a class leader in the Y. M. M. I. A., and a member of the Granite stake Sunday school board. Following the death of Elder George Reynolds, he was appointed second assistant general superintendent of the Sunday School Union, April 6, 1908, having previously been a member of the Board since October, 1906. He is a member of the Priesthood Study committee, also of the Board of Control of the Deseret Gymnasium. In business he has been employed by the Co-op. Wagon and Machine Company and other institutions in Salt Lake City, and has served as officer and director in a number of business corporations. In Tooele he engaged in farming, and in Oneida county, Idaho, in ranching.

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In his educational and professional activities he was a student at St. Mary's Academy, the Farmington public schools, Davis stake Academy, Salt Lake county and city schools, the L. D. S. University, the Salt Lake high school, and the universities of Utah, Michigan and Chicago. He graduated from the law school of the Chicago University. He has also acted as principal of the Malad city public schools, and for the past thirteen years has been a successful practicing attorney in Salt Lake City, having also served as a member of the law faculty of the University of Utah. Elder Richards is a young man of pronounced ability, clear judgment, and wide experience. His training, education, and natural endowments eminently fit him for the high office of apostle whereunto the Lord has called him. He possesses a pleasing personality and winning ways, and in bearing is gentlemanly, courteous and considerate. He has a strong, abiding and unimpeachable testimony of the divine mission of Jesus Christ, and of the restoration of the gospel of the Master to the Prophet Joseph Smith. His love for the truth and for the work of the Lord abounds. With these qualifications, he must not fail tobe a pillar of power and strength to his quorum and to the Church, in this his new calling as a special witness of Jesus Christ in all the world.

The Blessing of Children

This question conies to the Era: "If a baby is blessed by its father at home, when it is eight days old, should it afterwards be taken to Fast meeting on Fast day and blessed there? If so, of which blessing should the official record be made by the ward clerk?"

If a baby is blessed by its father at home, a note should be made of the blessing in the family record; but to comply with the requirements of the revelation in regard to the blessing of children, found in section 20, paragraph 70, Doctrine and Covenants, it will also be necessary to take the child "unto the elders before the Church" which is generally done in fast meeting. It is evidently intended that the record to be made in the ward shall be of the public blessing. The paragraph reads: "Every member of the Church of Christ having children, is to bring them unto the elders before the Church, who are to lay their hands upon them in the name of Jesus Christ, and bless them in his name."

This example of public blessing was set by the Lord Jesus, as recorded in the New Testament, and also in the Book of Mor-

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rnon, III Nephi 17:11-13, 23, 24. In these examples the blessing was done publicly, and that is the method that should be pursued by the parents who have children among the Latter-day Saints. This does not imply that a father should not bless his child when eight days of age, neither does it imply that a record should not be made of such blessing, for we believe that it is not only the privilege but the duty of the father to so bless his child, also to record the blessing in his family record. But the blessing of which the Church takes cognizance is the blessing that is given when the child is brought "unto the elders before the Church." It becomes the blessing of public record. Of course, in case of any inability to have the child taken before the public, for any cause, the blessing which the father gives becomes official when reported to the bishop, and it should be recorded in the ward records, but this would be the exception, and not the general rule.

The End of Booze

The Webb-Kenyon Law, providing that liquor shall not be shipped into any state contrary to the will of that state, was recently upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States by a vote of seven to two. Before this law became effective, as it lias been heretofore pointed out in the Era, the nation was placed in a position of almost active co-operation with those who desired to interfere with the efforts of the various states to exercise their undoubted powers over the sale of liquor within their boundaries. With the law in question now in force, and with a state law in operation, the state line is the end of booze. Shipments of liquor can not now claim exemption by posing as interstate commerce. In announcing the decision of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice White said, according to press reports :

"The purpose of this act was to cut out by the roots, the practice of permitting violation of state liquor laws. We can have no doubt that Congress has complete authority to prevent paralyzing the state authority. Congress exerted a power to co-ordinate the National with the State authority."

In commenting upon the decision the Outlook says: "We trust that the time will come when Congress, in exercising this right, to prevent the paralyzing of state authority, will go further, and actively sustain the state authorities in their efforts to carry out the liquor laws upon their books. There is no reason why it should not be made as great an offense against the Federal Government to use a federal license in order to sell liquor, contrary to the wishes of a state government, as it now

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is for moonshiners to make and sell liquor which does not pay a federal tax."

The conditions named above should materially aid the governor and state officials of Utah in the execution of the new prohibition law recently passed by the legislature and effective on the first of August next.

r An Idyl of the Westland' A delightful evening was spent by the General Boards of the Young Men's and Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Associations and a number of invited guests on the afternoon of January 31, in listening to the reading of Bishop Orson F. Whitney's new and splendid poem entitled, An Idyl of the Westland. The reading which occupied three hours was interspersed with beautiful musical selections, — vocal, by Miss Margaret Summerhays; piano, by Miss Margaret Whitney, and a violin solo by Miss Melba S. Lindsay. The interpretation of the theme by Bishop Whitney was in every way all that one could expect even from as talented and able a man as he is upon the rostrum. It was like music to the entranced listener. As an introduction, Bishop Whitney gave the following synopsis of the story: "The purpose of this poem is to combat the atheistic notions that are creeping into the minds of many of our young people, owing to their indoctrination in the so-called 'Higher Criticism.' To make it attractive to the youth, the poem is put in the form of a love story, so that the reader, while absorbing the romance, will partake necessarily of the instruction the doctrine and philosophy that the author wishes to present. The poetic narrative is in seven parts, entitled: (1) Maid and Lover; (2) The Meeting; (3) Separation; (4) Return; (5) Disillusion; (6) Despair; (7) Illumination. "The heroine is a western girl, born and reared in the region of the Rocky Mountains; beautiful and accomplished, but tinged with atheism, imbibed at the college where she completed her education. The hero is a New Englander, a Harvard graduate; not a member of any church, nor a subscriber to any particular creed, though an ardent admirer of Jesus the Nazarene. His vocation, like hers, is that of teacher. The New England youth and the narrator of the story were college chums, and it is through the latter that the former, while on a visit to the West, becomes acquainted with the young woman whom he recognizes as his fate. He falls in love at once, but her affection is slower to awaken. In fact, she has no inclination toward men and matrimony.

"Chilled with ices intellectual, Loved she books, but loved no lover.

"The meeting between hero and heroine takes place at an educational banquet near her native village. It no sooner occurs than a separation