---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Frost, Grace Ingles
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 22
number: 9
published: 1919-07
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Frost, Grace Ingles, "The Sum of Life," *Improvement Era* 22, no. 9 (July 1919): 812.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2209unse
  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: improvementera2209unse
start_page: 812
end_page: 812
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1919-07)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2209unse
  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.
---

# The Sum of Life

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Zion and Jerusalem
              By Joseph Fielding Smith, of the Council of the Twelve

    The following question is from a reader of the Improvement
Era, in the Southern States:
     Referring to Isaiah 2:2-3, please explain whether it is the New Jerusalem
that is to be built in the land of Zion, or Jerusalem that is to be built on the
eastern continent, from whence the word of the Lord will go forth in the
last days."

       The scripture in question is as follows:
      And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the
Lord's House shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be
exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
     And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach
us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go
forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

     The statement is very clear that two separate cities, or centers, are mentioned by Isaiah.  In modern revelation this is confirmed, and we are informed just where the city of Zion which          —
is   the New Jerusalem      —shall be    built.
     In order to get a proper understanding of this question, it is
necessary to explain the fact that Palestine is to be the gathering place of the tribe of Judah "and the children of Israel his
companions," after their long dispersion as predicted by the
prophets. America is the land of Zion. It was given to Joseph,
son of Jacob, and his descendants to be an everlasting inheritance.  The children of Ephraim (son of Joseph) "and all the
house of Israel his companions," will be gathered to Zion, or
America.
     In the blessing given by Jacob to his son Joseph the inheritance of America is foreshadowed and predicted in the following words:
    Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose
branches run over the wall: * * *
    The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my
progenitors unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills: they shall be on
the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate
from his brethren.
     Because of his faithfulness and integrity, Joseph received
greater blessings than the progenitors of Jacob, and was rewarded with the land of Zion. His brothers, with malicious
intent, separated him and cast him out from among them.                    The