--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Ivins, Anthony W. 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: 'Ivins, Anthony W., "Rebirth Through Sincere Desire," *Improvement Era* 23, no. 3 (January 1920): 218–222.' 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: 218 end_page: 222 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. --- # Rebirth Through Sincere Desire 220 IMPROVEMENT ERA person who has been born in the world must. It isn't sufficient that our parents had faith. We cannot live and survive upon the faith of others. These boys and girls here, who are in this choir in attendance upon this school, good boys and girls, never can know the truths of the gospel to satisfy their souls unless they go to the Lord for it; and I promise them, as I promise all men and women, that the prayer of faith will bring response, comfort will come to our hearts and our souls, and that invisible but nevertheless potent power which bears witness of the truth will satisfy us so that we cannot be in doubt, and once we are thus converted to the truth, the whole work practically is accomplished. We are worried to know what means we may adopt to protect our children from the sins of the world, from the great wave of immorality that is sweeping over the country today as it has never swept over it before. We may study devices, we may discuss ways and means, but we will never find an effective way to combat it, except through conversion to the truth of the gospel, to get our hearts in communion with God out Father, to become possessors of his Spirit, for the Spirit of the Lord will protect us from the sins of the world. I do not believe that a boy or girl who has in sincerity prayed to God when he or she arose in the morning, or when he or she retired to bed at night, has ever transgressed the laws of the Lord upon that day. He will protect them. But when we forget him, we are left without that necessary guidance and protection. So I appeal to you to exercise faith. Parents, inspire in the hearts of your children a desire to establish closer relationship with the Lord. CONVINCING TESTIMONY OF A CONVERSION. This homely story may illustrate my thought as well as anything I could tell. When I was a boy, I had close friends, as all boys have, neighbors with whom I was chummy, and among them was a boy about my own age. We lived near together we went to school together. This ; boy had two older brothers. His parents were devoted Latter-day Saints. The country at that time was wild and lawless along the frontier. Those older brothers became freighters they loved horses ; and mules, and they delighted in putting together splendid teams, and drove those teams into Montana, and west into Nevada, and down to the coast in California, freighting back merchandise which in those days was needed for the use of the people. They became two of the most profane men I ever knew, indifferent to the faith of their fathers, and intemperate. One day the body of the elder of those two boys was brought into our town, and his funeral services were held there. He had been killed in a difficulty with another man. The other, the next older, brother drifted away, and I lost sight of him. But this boy, who was my chum, I grew up with, and pretty soon he obtained a team and he went off to Silver Reef to freight, and learned to swear, and he was : A REBIRTH THROUGH SINCERE DESIRE 221 following the very road that his older brothers had followed. About that time I lost track of him. I went to Mexico. I came back after fifteen or twenty years, and had occasion to go up into Idaho to visit one of the stakes of the Church. I found this man there, presiding as bishop of one of the wards! I found one of his sons the bishop of another ward. I found another son president of the Mutual Improvement Association and one or two of the boys had been on missions. ; He had a splendid home there, presided over in dignity by his good wife. I looked at it all with wonder, and he smiled and said, "I know what you are thinking about." said, "Tell me how it all happened." I "Well," he said, "you know that I was going just the way my brothers went." "Yes," I said, "that is what surprises me." "My parents had always taught me a better way," he said "they ; had urged me to read the scriptures, and finally I decided that I would read the Book of Mormon, and I did while I was freighting. I read it through, and when I came to certain words in the last chapter of Moroni, I was very deeply impressed with them." These are the words to which he referred And I seal up these records, after I have spoken a few words by way of exhortation unto you. Behold I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it '•o wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of \ 222 IMPROVEMENT ERA right there near you telling you you cannot pray, and it would not do any good if you did. That is one of the devices of the enemy of truth to prevent you from placing yourself in harmony with the Lord. "But," he said, "by making a great effort I managed to appeal to the Lord, told him that I wanted to know the truth, and I want to tell you that those fellows on the day of Pentecost never received a stronger testimony than I did I felt that I was surrounded by con- ; suming fire, and I got up on my feet knowing just as well that the Lord lived, that Christ was the Redeemer of the world, that the gospel had been restored through the prophet Joseph Smith, and that the Book of Mormon is a divine record, as I knew that I was there and I ; got on to my wagon, drove home, left the road and came up here, located on this quarter section of land, and you can see the rest." PRAYER IS THE ROAD TO CONVERSION. Shortly after that, I was back at my old home, and met another friend of mine, with whom I had been more familiar than with the other. He was an entirely different kind of boy. There was nothing wild nor rough in his character. His father and mother were very refined people. We grew up together. As we got older, our interests became identical. We traveled together, we rode the range together; we went out for days and sometimes weeks together, sleeping under the same blankets. All this time my faith was developing, I was reading the scriptures, I was praying to the Lord, and I was full of desire to convert this boy companion of mine but for some reason I never ; could make any impression upon him. So in after years, when I went back there and found him, his hair whiter than mine, I talked with him. I called him by name. I said, "We are getting old, we ought to be doing something, we ought to be thinking of the future." He had never married. A more industrious man I never knew. never heard him speak an improper word. But I he had never married. I said, "For my sake, if not for your own, I want to urge that you study the word of the Lord read the Book of ; Mormon." "Why," he said, "I have just finished reading it, and the Doctrine and Covenants, too." I said, "What did you find in them?" "Why, I found lots of good things, and nothing that was bad." "Did it impress you particularly, did it change your religious view, did it add to your faith ?" "No, not specially." I said, "Did you ask the Lord to help you, as you read those books, to make you understand them, comprehend their meaning and their im- - rtance to you ?" He looked up at me and said, "Tonev, I never prayed a word in my life." A REBIRTH THROUGH SINCERE DESIRE 223 I knew then why he lacked faith; I knew then why testimony of the truth never came to him, and I knew that it mattered not how long he lived, unless he went to the Lord, pleading with him for grace to understand, that he never would comprehend His word and will as he might otherwise have done. Now that is the secret of it, my brethren and sisters. That is what I want to say to these boys and girls here. If you are in trouble, go to the Lord if you are tempted, go to him if you have, in an unguarded ; ; moment, done that which is wrong, go to the Lord. He will forgive and pardon transgression and sin, no matter though it may have been grave. No persons are so far lost, except they may have committed the unpardonable sin, and that would be exceedingly rare, that God's arms are not stretched out to them for their redemption. Our transgressions will be blotted out from the book of his remembrance, our sins will be washed white as wool, through faith in him, and our hearts will be filled with joy, and confidence in ourselves, in each other, and in our Father, through the exercise of faith. LET US DO OUR PART IN HUMILITY AND FAITH. Now may the Lord bless us all, my brethren and sisters, and help us at this time, when his help is so greatly needed, needed as it never before has been needed in the history of the Church and in the history of the world, for we have never before been confronted by such problems, never before has the world, has civilization, been in greater danger, never before has so much depended upon you and upon me for the redemption of the world and the maintenance of the doctrines of the gospel in it. May the Lord help us to do our part, each of us, in humility before him, I humbly pray. Amen. A Year From Now Seek not to see ahead too far, Or you will fail. The things gone by, and those that are, "Were they not hidden 'neath a ve'il? A year may bring us either pain Or happiness. To tell which now would be in vain; Presaging time is idleness. Pray only that your eye may be Made clear and strong Enough not to pierce through, but see The drama slowly move along. Clifton, Idaho O. E. Howell © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. SCENE IN ZION CANYON, UTAH Which is created into a National Park by act of Congress. Robert Sterling Yard, Washington, D. C, Executive Secretary of the National Park Association, recently made an inspection trip into this scenic attraction. Mr. Yard, who is considered the country's leading expert on American scenery, declares that the new park is second to none in the United States. Our picture shows his daughter, Margaret, in an attempt to scale a three-thousand foot wall of Zion Canyon. Her daring atttempt was unsuccessful, but the sheer, red cliff is only one of the many un- conquered walls of the Utah wonderland, which will be America's new National Park. The act establishing Zion National Park passed the House October 6, 1919.