---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Belnap, Ida L.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 23
number: 11
published: 1920-09
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Belnap, Ida L., "The M. I. A. Cause," *Improvement Era* 23, no. 11 (September 1920): 1015.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera23011unse
  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: improvementera23011unse
start_page: 1015
end_page: 1015
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1920-09)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera23011unse
  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.
---

# The M. I. A. Cause

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VITAL PROBLEMS OF LIFE                              1019

come deities without God to guide us, and our free agency determines the way we shall go.
    The fall of man and the plan of redemption furnish the
opportunity for the inner struggle between the higher and the
lower self.
    Strong passions and appetites become adversity levers, in
the hand of temperance. Greed wrestles with generosity and
the latter becomes strong through the contest, and a victor
through the agency of man.
    In the following verses we hear the wail of the weaklin*:
                                                                            to

     "I   would not live always,                  "I would not live always
          I   ask not to stay                       Thus fetttered by sin,
     Where storm after storm                      Temptation without,
          Rises dark o'er the way.                     And corruption within."
    How withering            is   that wail!    Listen now to the shout of
the strong:
                     "Thank God for the passion within me,
                       Thank God for the lure from without.
                     It is   heaven to conquer an impulse,
                       And to put an error to rout."
     In the outer world, we lift ourselves through combating
with the elements.
     In zones where bread-fruit grows, and climate is clothing,
civilization has to be imported.
     Individually and in groups we increase our intelligence;
we add to our courage by agitating, educating, and legislating
against mobilized iniquity.
    Through disappointment ones practice is measured; through
pain we gain fortitude; in fact, "we learn obedience through the
things we suffer," and make of our misfortunes "stepping stones
to higher things."
     As to poverty it is such a universal adversity that it will
be made the topic of a subsequent lesson.
     Standing in the light of adversity, as an uplifting force, we
naturally turn to a consideration of how to get the most uplift
out of adversity:                          ,.

     Meet adversity with seriousness. "Beware of entrance to a
quarrel; but being in, bear't that the opposer may beware of
thee."

    Meet adversity cheerfully.
    Pessimism always pulls down.
               "It is easy   enough to be pleasant
                 When life flows by like a song,
               But the man worth while is one who will smile
                 When everything goes dead wrong." Ella Wheeler Wilcox.