Problems of the Age

Problems of the Age

Dealing with Religious, Social and Economic Questions and their

Solution. A Study for the Quorums and Classes

of the Melchizedek Priesthood

By Dr. Joseph M. Tanner

IV. — The Spirit of Destruction

Toil. — The gospel teaches that wealth should be held in stewardship

for the benefit of God's children. It is perhaps one of the most difficult

duties man has to perform when he undertakes to overcome his selfishness,

when in the possession of the material gains of life. There is a real and

quite universal disposition to make ourselves secure against want, to provide

for the future, and lastly to feel ourselves removed from the necessity of

anxiety and work. From the days of Adam man in general has been put

under the pressure of toil. To earn his bread by the sweat of his brow

was the fiat that went forth to man from the garden of Eden. To make the

conquests in life more toilsome the earth was cursed by weeds and pests that

never left him secure in the knowledge that he would always reap the har-

vest he had planned. He needed hope and faith. He was not to be left in

a state of self-satisfaction.

The earth had to be redeemed, not only in the end, but continually,

by the labor and faith of her children. Redemption is not merely a final

act. It is a continuous struggle for conquest and restoration. We are made

redeemers by the life-long effort to conquer day by day the difficulties that

beset us. It is a delusion that men suffer from when they imagine they

may be redeemed by some act of contrition and repentance in the final

stages of their existence. We have a mission to conquer not alone the

soil and animal life but the forces of nature which abound in wealth for the

happiness and blessing of mankind. The wealth of these conquests surpasses

the fondest hopes of a selfish imagination. Man has found a means of

amassing fortunes through the revelations of science and invention. These

fortunes have become prodigious, but along with them increased poverty and

suffering. In our day, and for a number of years past, we have been com-

pelled to witness the feeding of school children at public expense because

their bodies were not sufficiently nourished to support the brain. Chari-

table institutions have multiplied greatly since the wealth of modern dis-

covery has been poured in upon the human family. Luxury and waste have

gone hand in hand with the increase of means provided by a benevolent

Providence for the comfort of his children.

Luxury. — A few years ago men saw the accumulation of capital in such

enormous quantities that they were sure money would go begging and in-

terest whose burden rested heavily upon them, would be lowered to a mini-

mum. But luxury has always kept pace with production. The automobile

came into vogue and capital was swallowed in a new pleasure. Usury was

a curse upon the people of God in olden times, and through all the ages

since it has lain heavily upon the world at large. The sinful conditions of

waste were potent causes in the destruction of nations in the past. One of

the most conspicuous nations of the world was ancient Rome, whose citizens

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 305

vied with each other in the extravagances they were able to display. The

sad story of the fall of ancient Rome contains the evidences of debauchery

which waste brought upon her people. Waste is a grievous sin, destructive

alike to nations and individauls. Men cannot violate the law of steward-

ship without bringing upon themselves the penalty of heaven. A wealthy

man lived, in one of the parables of the Savior, who had filled his barn, se-

cured himself against privation, and so could "eat, drink, and be merry."

Such a man Christ characterized as a fool. "This night thy soul shall be

required of thee," and all men die when they escape responsibility to their

fellow men and to God. Job was a perfect man and a wealthy man, but he

was a just steward. "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away." He lived

to praise God and was filled with gratitude, a quality of heart that every

rich man should possess.

Has the world amassed wealth in the spirit of stewardship? If for

selfish purposes men possess the earth, and waste the products of the labor

of man, they prepare themselevs for a spiritual death which means calamity

to the human race. We may possess but we may not waste. Waste means

luxury, idleness, and sin. It is a plague let loose upon mankind. All the

world dominion wars which have destroyed nations have been the leveling

processes by which God punished the waste, extravagances and injustices of

his children. There is no more dangerous symptom in the diagnosis of

national and individual life than the spirit of waste, the mother of extrava-

gance and sin.

Nor is waste a sin only amongst the rich; it is a habit alike of the poor

whose ambitions are to ape the rich. Extravagance lays waste not only the

material substance of man, but it destroys his physical, spiritual, and in-

tellectual well-being. The moral waste becomes an irreparable loss to the

world. It invites strife, contention, and war. Behold the holocaust of war,

and ponder the destruction it is bringing to life and property. A statement

of the world's losses through war is so forcefully put by the Berliner Tage-

blatt that I quote it at length, from its publication of August 25, 1917:

War and waste.— "War loans, $87,000,000,000; loss in dead and

wounded, 24,000,000 men; killed, 7,000,000 men; loss through decrease

in birth rate in all belligerent countries, 9,000,000.

"Gold production of the world during the last 500 years amounted

to $15,000,000,000, or less than one fifth of the cost of the awful world

war. In five-dollar gold pieces, the $87,000,000,000 raised in war loans

would form a belt that could be wound around the earth nine times.

The funeral cortege of the 7,000,000 killed would reach from Paris to

Vladivostok, if one hearse followed another.

"When the war began the combined public debt of the European

states was a little over $25,000,000,000, and now it is over $112,000,000,-

0. The British merchant fleet in 1914 represented a value of about

$950,000,000. That is less than the annual interest England now has to

pay for her war debt.- Before the war Germany exported goods to

British colonies to the amount of $113,000,000 a year. By cutting off this

export, England can eventually reimburse herself for her losses, but

this will take more than 200 years.

"Germany, with the amount spent by her for the war, could have

bought all the cotton fields, copper mines, and the whole petroleum in-

dustry of the United States and still would have had several billion dol-

lars left over.

"Russia, with her war expenses, might have covered her immense

territories with a net of railways as close as that of Belgium and France,

whose losses in men are larger than the entire population of Alsace-

Lorraine, could have bought all the Portuguese and Dutch colonies with

the money she sacrificed for the war.

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"Willi the enormous wealth destroyed hy the war, Europe might

have made a paradise on earth instead of a howling wilderness. There

is no doubt the awful struggle would have been avoided if the nations

had had any idea of its enormity when it started."

A little coterie of men at Potsdam, Germany, on July 5, 1914, lit the

torch that set the world in flames. The fire is still raging and no man seeth

the end of its destruction. The war is making an army of millionaires,

and new conditions of wealth will arise that are likely to complicate the

troubles that are sure to arise between capital and labor. Selfishness will

probably keep pace with the new conditions. As a consequence, envy and

disappointment among the masses may ripen into hatreds that in turn will

be destructive to the domestic peace of the nations. The rich will have

resting upon them a fearful responsibility because in their power will be the

stability of society and the contentment of labor. Luxury and waste will

create dangers to the stability of nations.

If the ambition of wealth is the display of it, men will bury their talents,

and the burial of many talents is a greater sin than the burial of one. Com-

plications and dangers are plain enough to see, but who can forecast a rem-

edy? There are millions given to institutions, often to honor a name or

satisfy an ambition. The needs of humanity are too frequently overlooked.

Ambition for Power. — Money strives for power. Newspapers, magazines,

instituions of learning, and vast industries have their compelling force upon

public opinion, because they are largely the creations of the rich. For the

past fifty years there has grown up in Germany a so-called "Junker" class,

as ambitious as it has been rich. Its wealth was turned to selfish and

national aggrandizement. It educated the masses to believe in war. By

its great publications and influence the whole national life was lured into

false hopes. It not only dragged its own nation into war, but brought war

upon nearly all the world. Wealth has there and in other lands be-

come the most destructive element in the social and economic life of man-

kind.

Noble Examples. — The conservation of wealth entails a sacred duty on

the part of those who possess it. There has always been a dangerous fallacy

among men that their money is their own and they may do with it what

they like. The idea of stewardship has been foreign to their own minds.

There has never in all history been a law that could beneficially regulate it.

It has been a part of the exercise of the free agency of man. God gave a

law of control and distribution to ancient Israel, but its provisions were

shamefully disregarded, and his people paid the penalty in poverty and sor-

row. Christ exalted the poor from their lowly estate, or would have done

so, had they accepted his teachings. He made the way plain. His spirit

was a guide to rich and poor alike. The loss of that spirit has meant in-

dividual and national bankruptcy. The burning question of the world today

is the recovery of the loss of God's favor among -his children. Will it be

possible for them to recover the blessing, the birthright they have so

frivolously bartered away. They are just as much mistaken about the value

of wealth as Esau was about his mess of pottage. In the end Esau gave

a "loud cry." It was the cry of despair. We have in Abraham a beautiful

example of a man of wealth. When the Assyrians carried off the inhabitants

of the cities of the plain, together with their flocks and herds, he was sat-

isfied to take back in his campaign against them the booty they had carried

off. He restored it to its owners, and would have no reward for himself.

His unaffected acts of charity, and unselfishness in the distribution of land

with Lot make him an ideal with respect to the stewardship of his posses-

sions. Of the things of this world he had plenty, but the ambition of his

life was not to keep what he had and to get more. He was constantly crav-

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 307

ing the favor of Jehovah. He would have children, and he had none, not-

withstanding God's promises to him. He saw in them a blessing.

How the world is turned around today! What Abraham would treasure,

the world today esteems lightly; what Abraham would esteem lightly the

world is seeking in a spirit of madness.

The Saints of God in this dispensation have been and are warned against

the dangers of worldly gain. Has it become a passion with any of them?

Do those who have acquired an abundance of wealth regard it in the spirit

of a stewardship? Do they feel that it lays upon them a heavy responsi-

bility? Do any of them sense the dangers of luxury, extravagance, and

waste? Do the faithful, by their pronounced disapproval, discountenance

everywhere manifestations of wasteful pride and vain ambitions?

Revelation to Joseph Smith, 1831. — Behold, I, the Lord, in the beginning

blessed the waters, but in the last days, by the mouth of my servant John, I

cursed the waters;

"Wherefore, the days will come that no flesh will be safe upon the

waters." Doc. and Cov. 61:14-15.

"For all flesh is corrupted before me; and the powers of darkness pre-

vail upon the earth, among the children of men, in the presence of all the

hosts of heaven,

"Which causeth silence to reign, and all eternity is pained, and the an-

gels are waiting the great command to reap down the earth, to gather the

tares that they may be burned; and behold, the enemy is combined." Doc.

and Cov. 38:11-12.

V. — Religion and the War

Fear. — There was a very general belief throughout the world that the

war would bring a new devotion to religion. Observations of ministers and

members of the Y. M. C. A. do not bear out such an expectation. "Fear

of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." It was not the fear of the Lord

so much as it was fear of consequences on the battlefield that in the be-

ginning awakened a movement toward prayer. It is said soon to have died

out. Interviews with French soldiers indicate a sort of philosophy about

life and death that bordered somewhat on fatalism. It was called the

philosophy of good cheer, a sort of reconciliation to whatever might happen.

It was French optimism put into aphorisms. The Christian W/orld Pulpit,

of July 25, 1917, contains a sermon on the subject of fatalism by George

Lawrence, in which he says:

"A soldier said to me in a dugout in the trenches, 'If I am born to

be drowned, I shall not be shot.' The subject under discussion was

fatalism. It is because I recognize the subtle danger of this doctrine

that I venture to combat it. Under its influence, soldiers have been

known to invite danger, run unnecessary risks, and even to play with

the chances of death. They believed, until they were hit, the bullet

intended for them had not yet left the munition factory. You can readily

understand what havoc a doctrine like this can work. It is criminal to

tell soldiers going to France that their death on the battlefield is de-

creed for them by fate. It undermines their security in themselves,

destroys their self-confidence, and renders them unfit for the proper dis-

charge of their duties. I wish to convince you there is no such thing as

fate. Our destinies are not controlled, nor our death decreed by it If

they are we must then excuse the ruthless submarine murders, the bar-

barities, and horrible atrocities of the enemy."

Much has been written of the Russian predisposition to fatalism. It is

doubtful whether the British have a really crystallized belief on the subject.

It is rather an abandonment to despair, perhaps an effort to meet a danger-

308 IMPROVEMENT ERA

ous situation in a spirit of indifference. Whatever you call it, it represents

the antipode of true religion. It is worthy of notice that in this extremity

the scales tip away from religion. The thoughts and feelings of such have

in the past been schooled away from a working belief in God. Such an

abandonment, or fatalism, if you choose to call it such, reveals a total lack

of conviction about the most important thing in the world. Religious con-

victions at the front would be rather an effect of the previous beliefs and

practices than the sentiments which the war would create. That, as a rule,

has been the history of religion in war. War itself does not have a very

moralizing effect on soldiers. It invites too many vices, and is surrounded

by too many temptations and evil influences. It tests human life in its

weakest places, and it is the scene of too many horrors. There will of

course be those whose early training and habits are conducive to a prayerful

attitude in the presence of eternity. Such wars usually indicate a decadent

period in the life of nations. The enormous number of rejects clearly

prove a physical and moral deterioration. That, too, is the belief of those

who have given the matter study and attention. Rev. Elmer F. Clark of the

Y M. C. A. discusses the question of the church in England and France.

Speaking of England, he says in the Literary Digest, Sept. 8, 1917:

Conditions at the Front. — "She has the most evangelical type of re-

ligion in Europe and has long been proud of her Sabbath-keeping

scrupulosity and her religion generally. In the first four months of

the war all signs pointed to the fact that the church's expectation was

to be abundantly fulfilled. The people flocked to the churches, resorted

to prayer, and gave all evidences of a quickening religious life. In these

months it appeared that a great religious revival was imminent.

"But this early religious awakening was founded in fear, and fear

is a motive that cannot long support an intelligent faith. * * * To-

day the average person traveling through Europe would certainly see no

signs of renewed interest in things religious, and even the specialist who

investigates intensely and studies all known signs and evidences, will

discover but few. In London and Paris, as well as in all other towns

and cities I have visited, vice is as rampant as ever, the general popula-

tion are as little concerned with eternal matters, and the church faces

the same problems of sin and indifference.

"In France there are encouraging signs, but in England there are

none. Those signs in France appear here and there in the fact that the

Roman Catholic Church is adopting a more modern attitude and pre-

senting a more vital and evangelistic message.

"What about prayer? People never prayed so much as they did

at the beginning of hostilities. Yet what did their prayers avail? The

war went right on, and men were killed just the same. And there was

no distinction. The son of the man who prayed for the boy's safety

night and day was killed as quickly as the son of the man who recog-

nized no God to whom one might pray. The prayers were not answered

in the least. What, then, was the good of prayers, and where was God?

Perhaps there is no God after all.

"This doubt and uncertainty affected many people, from the clergy-

man to the Tommy."

Importuning God in a perilous hour is an almost universal human trait.

But what is the actuating spirit? Too often it is fear and not love. What

a different prayer from that of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane:

"O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me:

nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."

Such a prayer is not fatalism; it is a sweet resignation to the will of

God. The false premise of it all is that death is a calamity. Who shall say

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 309

it may not be after all a divine favor? Death is not the end, but it is

the aim of all life. The time and manner may not be the important thing

about death. We are dealing with divine purposes which are largely hidden

from the world. The important thing about death is that we are prepared to

go, that on the other side we may give a good account of our stewardship

here.

Nature God. — Then there is that other vital question, — what kind of God

are we imploring? There is nothing in the world very clear about the God

of nature — not the God of nature but the nature-god. The soldier sees man

making great headway into the realm of such a God. That makes the hu-

man a super-man — a little above the nature-god.

Disintegration. — Mr H. G. Wells a celebrated English writer, discusses

The God of the New Age. Mr. Wells would do away with church edifices,

as well as rituals and creeds. Ex-President Roosevelt takes issue in the fol-

lowing number, October, 1917, of the Ladies Home Journal. I quote:

"It is perfectly true that occasional individuals or families may have

nothing to do with church or with religious practices and observances,

and yet maintain the highest standard of spirituality and of ethical ob-

ligation.

"But this does not affect the case of the world as it now is, any

more than exceptional men and women under exceptional conditions

have disregarded the marriage tie without harm to themselves interferes

with the larger fact that such disregard if at all common means the

complete moral disintegration of the body politic. * * * Therefore,

on Sunday go to church. Yes, I know all the excuses; I know that

one can worship the Creator and dedicate oneself to a good living in a

grove of trees, or by a running brook, or in one's own house, just as

well as in church. But I also know, as a matter of cold fact, that the

average man does not thus worship or thus dedicate himself. If he stays

away from church he does not spend his time in good works or in

lofty meditation."

Mr. Wells sees a general breaking away from the world creeds. He

sees that the world will need something different after the war — a new re-

ligion. But will the world accept Mr. Wells' new theories? Really there is

nothing new about them. It is the old story that man can worship any way,

anywhere he pleases. Authority in religion, especially in the protestant

world, is breaking down — if it is not entirely gone. Reconstructing old re-

ligious practices and theories will not answer in the future. In the new

world to come there must be a new revelation. When the new conditions

of worship come, it will be because God's Spirit moves the hearts of men

and shows them the way of his will. Will sobriety come after the war, will

men give heed to religious thought and living? If not, the end of sorrow

will not come at the end of the war. It begins to look as if the grinding

process would go on. There is something to hope for from the war. Its

end must come in the not far distant future.

If it has no sobering effect upon the religious life of the world it will

be because of the hardness of men's hearts, because the voices of anguish and

despair have not penetrated them. Humility is one of the corner stones of

religion. Will war bring humility? To whom? Not to the victors. They

will exalt themselves in their own pride. With them God will be on the

side of the heaviest artillery.

Hatreds of War. — When men fight they are not usually in a mood to

pray. Too often their suffering brings hatred. They are not like Job. In

their agony they are ready to curse God and die. Their deaths are not

saint-like — not offered up in the spirit of sacrifice. From all human ex-

310 IMPROVEMENT ERA

periencc and from history, it may as a general rule be said that war destroys

religion. There will of course be exceptions, and men may go to battle

from the loftiest motives and a holy cause. Wars have their well-defined

history; indeed, history is made up chiefly of wars. As we look back upon

it, we need not doubt that in most of them there has been a "handwriting on

the wall." There is reason to pray before the battle, and those who do so

will not be left without the spirit of prayer, which may be of more value to

them than life or death. The blessings come to those who earn them, and

they may be earned in war as they are earned in peace.

Revelation. —

"And this gospel shall be preached unto every nation, and kindred,

and tongue, and people.

"And the servants of God shall go forth, saying, with a loud voice, Fear

God and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come." Doc.

and Cov. 103:37,38.

VI. — Conservation of Life

Life's Mission. — As a definition of the purposes of all life, we may say

that its mission is to live, produce its kind, and die. There is nothing in

such a definition to explain a multitude of attributes and peculiarities of

human life; but out of the three duties, to live, to produce our kind, and to

die, may develop the secondary functions of our being. Our duty to live is

what in this chapter we may term the "conservation of life." Whatever robs

us of our vital powers, our ability to live, takes from us so much of our des-

ignated mission in the world. We have no right to assume that it is all

right if we continue indifferent to our existence, for our existence is tied up

with the existence of others. We are part of an organized life. We belong

to a class of social beings who have a united mission in the world, that can

be accomplished in keeping with the Divine purposes only as we protect

our bodies and fit them for a sound and long life — the life allotted to man.

The Interdependence of Life. — There is a relationship in all living

things that is frequently overlooked when our duty to life in different as-

pects is considered. Man in the Garden of Eden was commanded to till

the earth. In other words, he was to promote life both in the animal and in

the vegetable kingdoms. That was a part of his duty, and that duty is just

as pronounced today as it was then. In order that our lives may become as

full and as complete as God intended them, we must strive to bring our-

selves in harmony with all life, not merely with the life of human beings.

The man who cultivates a blade of grass, who promotes life in its simplest

form in the vegetable kingdom, promotes likewise his own life. He makes

his own life better than the man who stands aloof, who says, "It is not my

business to cultivate the soil; it is not my business to encourage growth,

except within my own body." And although the shepherd, the peasant,

have in all ages stood at the bottom of the social scale, they have had about

them qualities of endurance that have made them survive through all con-

ditions of social life.

"A sturdy peasantry, a country's pride,

When once destroyed, can never be revived."

Life a Religious Duty. — The Latter-day Saints, in settling the valleys of

the mountains, were called to a rural life. Their earliest teachings por-

trayed superior advantages of man's intimate communication with nature,

that was both to live and help live; and therefore, he was instructed in the

religion of good farming, of progressive animal industry He was building

up a new communion of life. Because the sermons of those days took on

the practical character of men's daily life, they were ridiculed as being de-

void of spirituality, whereas man's spiritual powers are enriched by his

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 311

association with nature, by his companionship with those forms of life

which God created in the beginning for his sustenance.

Our Duties under a More Complex Life. — As we have progressed in a

material way, there has grown up among us a large so-called middle-class,

men whose duties keep them from the intimate association with nature

which they formerly enjoyed. The new life, however, does not relieve them

of the duties that belong to our duties in the world. It is always a helpful

sign when merchants, mechanics, manufacturers, feel a love for the soil, plan

the growth of living things, and look to the soil for an enjoyment that so-

ciety does not give. We have perverted our lives through social ambitions,

when we should have striven to become producers, and thus take part in the

conservation of life.

Conservation of life here does not mean simply that we are to save our

own bodies, that we are to make them strong and healthy merely; while it

does include these duties, it has a higher meaning, a meaning of a Celestial

character. If we may farm on a large scale, well and good. If circum-

stances prevent it, we may raise a garden or work in an orchard; but no

matter how humble our circumstances in life, we are never so poor that

there may not be a charm of life about our home, and the cascade of

flowers that hangs about the window. There is something in the growth of

living things that makes for higher morality and greater worldly efficiency.

So we are called to promote life in some form, and he who feels merely the

sensation of his own living without enjoying the touch of life that God

has given about him can never be the highest conservator of human progress.

Our Children's Lives. — It is our duty not alone to conserve our own

lives but to conserve the lives of our children; to bring them into touch

with nature; to interest them in the myriad forms of life about them, to

watch it, to follow it, to enjoy it, and to utilize it. Such habits in child life

detract from the constant temptation to become self-absorbed. This self-

absorption has much to do in leading our young people away from the

higher ideals of the world. This self-absorption creates selfishness, selfish-

ness makes our youth unhappy, robs them of faith and destroys their lives.

It is a real hindrance to the progress of youth to rob it of an association

with nature. A horse means more to a boy than something to ride or 10

drive. It means a new interest; it means companionship of God's life mani-

fested in the creation of animals

What a beautiful thing it is to read the account of the Creation con-

tained i.i the first chapter of Genesis! How beautiful it is to imagine such

a period in the world when all that exists helps and sustains human life is

brought into being. If such living things were a part of God's unbounded

interest in man, it is the duty of man to keep himself in touch with the

things that were created for his joy and needs in life.

Our Girls. — There is no greater mistake made than the all too common

belief that there must be a complete separation between our girls and the

soil. Woman's mission in life is more intimate with the functions of birth

than that of man. She should feel the inspiration, the strength, and the value

that come to humanity from all the living things of God's creation. There is

no fancy work so beautiful as the flower. The burdens of the farm are not

hers to carry, but there is the garden, the flower beds, the living animals

and things about home that should enter into woman's conceptions of

broader and better life. To her education the companionship of the vege-

table and animal world belongs. It should not be forgotten that there come

to us in life great benefits through a spirit of inspiration. We may not de-

fine it, we may not trace its workings, we may not measure its values, but

it helps us. It enlarges our visions of life. It is the breath of life that we

need today. God is changing things in this world of ours. Women are

breaking away from the stifling atmosphere of a dusty past; they work on

312 IMPROVEMENT ERA

ihe farm, they are harrowing in the garden, they are taking upon themselves

the duties that belong to the broader world from which they have been too

long removed. In the earlier days of our history in Utah, women felt and

loved the touch of nature. They felt the inspiration of all life about them.

They sometimes went to the field, more frequently to the garden, and la-

bored among the domestic animals that contributed to the support of the

home. For this they were ridiculed by the magazines and papers of the

world. They were held up as slaves; they were cartooned. But their con-

ceptions of life were sound. Their examples of industry and out-door

life have won out, and the world has come to realize that what was in their

hearts to do was the God-ordained end of human happiness to conserve life.

A false modesty and false social conceptions drove them from the simpler

and plainer duties of their life into the maukish ways of an artificial world

about them. The war is now demonstrating the truth of woman's place in

the living world, a place for which she contended in the earlier days of

our colonization in the valleys of the mountains.