---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Lambourne, Alfred
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 23
number: 3
published: 1920-01
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Lambourne, Alfred, "A. D. 1920," *Improvement Era* 23, no. 3 (January 1920): 217.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2303unse
  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: improvementera2303unse
start_page: 217
end_page: 217
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1920-01)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2303unse
  publication_year: 1920
  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 1920, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# A. D. 1920

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A REBIRTH THROUGH SINCERE DESIRE                       219

It   was a witness to me, my brethren and sisters, of the fulfilment of
the words of the Redeemer himself.
     You know that men sought Jesus. They desired' to know the way
by which they might attain to everlasting life. They offered money
on occasions. But he told them that the gifts of God could not be
purchased with money, and bore witness that except a man be born
again he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus marveled at that.
He did not understand what it meant. Then the Redeemer illustrated
the thought by saying, "Except a man be born of water and of the
Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."    How often in the
Church we encounter people who lack faith       People addressed us at
                                                    !

that meeting this morning who, I knew, because of their accent and
peculiarity of speech, were not American born. I knew they had come
from abroad. I knew the gospel had found them away over there in
England, possibly in Ireland, possibly in Scotland, or in Wales, or in
Scandinavia, or other of those old world countries. Their testimony
was the very same as the testimony of boys whom I knew, and who
were there this morning, whose grandfathers were in the Church,
who were among those who first carried the gospel into the old world.
There is no difference of nationality there is no difference of sex. It
                                           ;

doesn't matter where we live, doesn't matter, as I remarked, whether
we are tall or short or blonde or brunette if we go to the Lord he will
                                                ;

make good the promise which he has made to the people of the world,
that "He who seeketh me in faith shall find me, he who asketh in
faith believing, I will answer to him who knocketh, I will open ;" and
                               ;

just as certain, my brethren and sisters, as the Lord has made good
that promise, so is it certain that he who does not seek does not find,
to him who does not knock it is not opened, and to him who has no
desire to know the truth, truth      is   a sealed book.

           A REBIRTH NECESSARY     —A CONVERSION TO THE oOSPEL.
    I have often thought, and I have thought of it recently more than
atany other period in my life, that there is, it seems to me, ampng
young men and women in the Church, a spirit of indifference. This is
rot general, but there are too       many exceptions to the general rule.
We find among these boys and girls a lack of faith, a lack of knowledge   among many of them apparently there is a sincere desire to know,
       ;

and  yet they appear to be in doubt I wonder if we have not thought, we,
                                      ;

fathers and mothers, that from the fact that our children were born in
the Church, born under the covenant, and that we have, in the Church,
auxiliary associations that are designed to teach faith,—whether we
have not left our children entirely to the direction, or to a great exient
to the direction, of these facts and organizations, and we have neglected
to impress upon their minds that boys and girls born in the
                                                                Church of
goodly parents must be born again to know       Christ and God,  just as a