---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Pearson, Sarah E. Hawley
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 22
number: 7
published: 1919-05
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Pearson, Sarah E. Hawley, "Mothers’ Day in the U. S. A.," *Improvement Era* 22, no. 7 (May 1919): 629.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2207unse
  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: improvementera2207unse
start_page: 629
end_page: 629
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1919-05)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2207unse
  publication_year: 1919
  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 1919, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Mothers’ Day in the U. S. A.

<!-- page:629 -->

THE CONTACT                        631

close vital contact with   God, the source of   all   moral power
can give this victory."
     This aged man's conclusions suggest the Grecian myth
concerning the giant Anteas, whose strength was doubled every
time he touched mother earth, and who was finally conquered
by Hercules because he lost contact with the earth. The myth
holds more than a grain of truth. Contact with the source of
power is the only way to conquer. Break the wire that unites
the buzzing machine in the mill, with the dynamo, in the distant canyon, and the machine instantly stops.     Sever the connection between the electric lamp in your room and the source
of the electric current, and your light goes out.   Let man become estranged from God, and he immediately loses the spiritual life which alone gives mastery over the foes of the soul.
     It was left for Joseph Smith to discover for modern man
the way to come into vital touch with the living God. At the
age of fourteen he became intensely concerned about his soul's
salvation.  He wanted to know which was the true church.
The preachers could not satisfy his yearning for certainty on
a matter so important.    Their indefinite and conflicting speculations only bewildered his youthful mind. In the midst of his
mental disquietude he read God's promise of wisdom to those
who "ask in faith." With perfect confidence in the promise,
he decided to put it to the test. He went into a nearby grove
and prayed. His sincere prayer prevailed. God the Father
and his Son, Jesus Christ, appeared to him; and the Son, after
being introduced by the father, gave instructions to the boy.
     That day, ninety-nine years ago, this boy made the greatest discovery of modern times. He discovered the power of faith,
the only power that can give man the same mastery over the
forces of evil that science has given man over the forces of
nature. With the undoubting faith which this boy found and revealed to man, and by this alone, can man become "more than
conqueror" in this world, cursed by "vaulting ambition," corrupting impurity, and corroding narcotics.
     The story of this boy's triumphant faith is the most thrilling incident in modern annals.      There is life, light and inspiration in it.   It is the beacon of hope that lights the
way across the dark chasm which ages of ignorance and superstition have placed between man and God.             Tens of thousands of true-hearted men and women who have heard this
story have gone in quest of the knowledge of God with a
sincerity and fervor so genuine that they have received that
witness of God's Spirit which has made them so certain of
God's existence, the divinity of Christ's mission, and the reality
of the future life, that the besetting evils of this world have
lost all power over them.