--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - David O. McKay collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 24 number: 3 published: 1921-01 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'David O. McKay, "A Message to the Youth of the Land," *Improvement Era* 24, no. 3 (January 1921): 187–192.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2403unse 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: improvementera2403unse start_page: 187 end_page: 192 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1921-01) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2403unse publication_year: 1921 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 1921, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # A Message to the Youth of the Land — : Improvement Era Vol. XXIV. JANUARY, 1921. No. 3. A Message to the Youth of the Land' By Elder David O. McKay, of the Council of the Twelve It is an inspiration always to meet with the Latter-day Saints in conference. I rejoice with you in having this opportunity of listening to the words of love and inspiration with which this conference has been favored. I am overwhelmed, as I stand here and face this large interested audience, but I am free to say to you that if I had my choice I would not choose to speak to you, men of the Priesthood, and faithful women in the Church. I should prefer to give whatever message I have in my heart to another audience, this morning, which is scattered all up and down these counties and towns and valleys of the western states. I should like to speak to your boys and to your girls, to their playmates wherever they may be. However, since we have but very few of them here, I shall have to speak to them through you, because after all this conference, inspiring as it may be, is not an end in itself. The purpose of it shall not have been attained until the messages through you reach your sons and your daughters, and your neighbors' sons and daughters. Your happiness, your peace, depends upon your ability to get the message into their hearts. TO BE CARNALLY-MINDED IS DEATH TO BE SPIRITUALLY-MINDED IS LIFE AND PEACE If they were here this morning I would read the following text "To be carnally-minded is death, but to be spiritually-minded is life and — peace." Glorious words these life, peace. The whole purpose and end of existence is life, and to obtain in that life, peace. Eternal life we have heard from Elder Richards, that the work and glory of God — are to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man and our purpose wherever we may be, is to live. THE HAPPY LIFE COMES FROM OBEDIENCE TO LAW I believe thatwe can meet our boys on that plane and appeal to Delivered at the General Conference, October 9, 1920. ! : 188 IMPROVEMENT ERA them, show them that the best life, the happiest life is the life «'ind that prompted by the ideals of true religion. Many of them will is turn aside when you say you are going to preach to them. I do not always blame them. I believe that too many of us stand on the side, as it were, and call to them to come back without ever entering into their lives. I was reminded this morning of an old story that appeared in one of our early school books. Many of you present will remember it, so I need not repeat it to you. You remember the author pictures some people sailing down the river towards the Niagara Falls, and the man on the shore cries: "Young men, ahoy, the rapids are below you !" But they went on laughing and carousing. Later he cried "Young men, ahoy, the rapids are below you!" But they heeded not his warning call until they suddenly realized that they were in the midst of the rapids, and with all the power at their command they failed to turn their boat upstream, so, he says, shrieking and cursing over they go Well, it is a very impressive picture. The lesson left an indelible impression upon me, but today it seems incomplete. It is one thing to stand on the shore and cry: Young men, ahoy, there is danger ahead and it is another thing to row into the stream, and, if possible, ; get into the boat with the young men and by companionship, and by persuasion, by legitimate force, when necessary, turn the boat from the rapids. Too many of us stand on the shore and cry: Young men, ahoy Let us get into their lives, let us touch their personality by ! our personality, and let them feel that there is something real in this religion; that it is the greatest thing in life, that nothing else can make them Jive as the true religious life. When they feel this they love it, and until they do feel it, until they do sense an immediate blessing, following activity, we are going to find difficulty in calling them into that realm where there is peace. Young people say "We want : to live. That is just what we are going to do. Let us have life, and have a good time." But their view is often distorted. They are seeking to live in the physical pleasures. They are seeking to live in the realm that brings only immediate sensation, and afterwards no peace. They fail to distinguish between the carnal pleasures and those which are intellectual and spiritual. I am not going to ask them not to have a good time. I think they should have a good time. Young men and young women are entitled to it all men and all women are ; entitled to it. We are all here to enjoy life in its fullest and most complete sense but the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ ; is this that : to live one must live in obedience to law, physical law, intellectual law, spiritual law. Transgression of law always brings unhappiness, it always brings death when carried to the ultimate end. A MESSAGE TO THE YOUTH 189 HE WHO PLAYS THE CROOKED GAME LOSES I was deeply impressed, and I hope the young men of the United States were impressed, with the remark made by one who was nationally disgraced recently when he said, it seems to me, in a rather repentant spirit: "I have played a crooked game, and I have lost." Boys, that is the story of every one who plays the crooked game. The one who plays the game straight, who deep down in his soul does the right thing, because it is right, is the man who has that peace and contentment that we all so much long for. HE LIVES MOST WHO LISTENS TO THE URGENCE FOR A HIGHER, BETTER LIFE Let us seek to live intellectually. I welcome with all my heart the hundreds, and the thousands of boys and girls who are participating in the realm of education in the auxiliary associations, and in the — Church schools. What are they learning to do but to live! to live — completely and abundantly; and in the living to serve serve their fellow men. He lives most who sees or hears "Tongues in trees, books in the runnig brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." He lives most who sees beyond these trees, these stones, these running brooks and sees God and goodness in it all, who sees an overruling providence in all this world and recognizes God's children as brothers and sisters, in every one of whom there is something good, ever striving, to lift the man up out of the sensual world into the realm of true religion. I believe that there is in every human soul a something good calling for something better, very much as that something of life mentioned by Lowell when he said, referring to spring, "Every clod feels a stir of might, an instinct within it that reaches and towers and groping blindly about it for light, climbs to a soul in leaf and flower." So there is in the human soul that divine element which is calling, striving, urging the person up to a higher, to a better life. Boys and girls should do right because it is right. The day is past when you can threaten them with punishment hereafter. The world has passed by the fears of a fire and eternal torment. They can be appealed to, however, upon the sound pirnciples of true religious living. It is the best because it works best. It is the best because it makes us happy and better here and now. We are better citizens, we are better friends, we are better football players, we are better students, we are better sons, we are better daughters, we are better everything, and the world should know it. When we take the opposite view, as many of our boys unfortunately are doing, and seek life in immediate pleasures, transitory pleasures, indeed, we ffnd only disappointment and eventually death, for to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. "Live while you live, the Epicure would say, and seize the pleasure of the present day." 190 IMPROVEMENT ERA That is one view. "Live while you live, the sacred preacher cries, and give to God each moment as it flies;" the other: "Lord, in my view, let both united be. I live in pleasure when I live to thee." PHYSICAL PLEASURES TO BE AVOIDED There is no peace in yielding to the temptation to transgress the laws of virtue and chastity. If there is one thing in all this world for which we should be thankful as Latter-day Saints, it is that there is a sentiment, founded upon the solid basis of revelation from God, that chastity among the young is as sacred as life itself. One of the most disintegrating influences today is that feeling that is creeping in amongst some of our young boys and young girls that they can violate the law of chastity with impunity. The law of the land may not reach them — they may avoid that. Their bishops may not detect their transgression. But God can. And deep down in their own souls they know that they have lost part of their life. They have lived as the Epicure would live, for the moment, and they have no peace. Their souls are turbulent. Why? Because they have stained the character of another, they have stained their own souls eternally. No one can transgress the laws of chastity and find peace. That is the message to our boys, to our girls. No matter what the opportunity, no matter what the temptation, let the young man of Israel know that to find happiness he must hold sacred his true manhood, let him know that he is going to live and live completely by refusing to yield to that temptation. Then he is happy; he is happy. There is peace instead of turbulency in his soul. Next to that disintegrating evil, is the evil mentioned by President Clawson, tobacco — young men who are just learning to indulge in this physical pleasure, this sensual appetite, have been told by you parents, not to smoke. Some of the young men- are not doing it in your presence. Some of your boys you think have not become addicted to that habit. In trying to correct this evil, have you stood aside and cried, Young man, ahoy, there is danger down there? Or have you tried to touch his soul? Have you tried to convert him to the fact that to indulge in the pernicious habit is to take part of his life, to weaken his physical being? Have you studied how to convince him of it? If you haven't you are standing on the shore simply crying to him instead of plunging in and trying to guide him around. The gospel of Jesus Christ when lived in its fulness, as we were admonished yesterday by the President in the keynote of this conference, gives peace, life, physical life, intellectual life, spiritual life. The Word of Wisdom is a law that applies directly to the physical world, the physical salvation and peace of man. Too many of our boys are unconverted to it. We haven't touched them by our "appeals. We haven't given them facts perhaps. They think we are preaching, simply crying to them to come back. I would that every young man A MESSAGE TO THE YOUTH 191 knew this : that every person who indulges in the use of tobacco simply hampers his physical well-being to the extent that he uses that narcotic. Let us appeal to them. Let us unite as a body in the campaign that is now abroad in our land to eliminate the use of that weed, from our communities. The time has come when the Latter-day Saints should stand by their principles, not on the bank crying, but in the midst of the young, out with them, in their quarters, out with them to the picture shows, go out with them, mingle with them. It is all right to talk about the sacredness and the influence of our homes, and there is no one that will stand more solidly behind the importance of having the right influence in the home than I, but the fact remains that our boys are going out at night, night after night and you and I are out ; of our homes, during the day, so we are not associating with them very often in their homes, and it behooves us to get out into the pleas- ures more than we have, to go to their shows with them, aye and go to their parties and become acquainted and touch their lives. Then we may know, whether or not they are taking a cigarette once in a while. We can detect their breath, perhaps. We can see the com- panions with whom they are associated, and we can judge our boys and our girls greatly by the companions they keep, as well as by their actions in the home. To boys I would say, that if they want to live physically, if they want to be men strong in body, vigorous in mind, if they want to be good sports, enter the basket ball game, enter the football game, enter the contest in running and jumping, if they want to be good scouts, if they want to be good citizens, in business, anywhere, avoid tobacco and live strictly the religious life. I am not afraid to call it the religious life to them. It is not a thing that will make them gloomy and sad. Live the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the science of life revealed from on high. Make them feel it as you feel it and I am sure we are going to save them, and by that I mean we are going to make them live happier and better. If we need any test, anything to help us on that, to appeal to them, we can find plenty of material to help us. I would like the boys to understand that the revelation given by the prophet Joseph is borne testimony to, today, by thousands and thousands of men and women. Here is one testimony, which I would like to read. It comes from a man who spent many years in the study of opium, in curing drunkenness, and who is now striving to cure the habit of tobacco. He has spent many years in the Orient and he has seen the effect of opium upon the eastern people. A COMPARISON He compares the effect of the cigarette with that of opium. Mr. Charles B. Towne in Habits that Handicap says: I have spent a good deal of time in the Orient in the interest of those 192 IMPROVEMENT ERA who are trying to subdue the opium evil, and I may add that there is in China today a flourishing concern which has grown rich out of the sale of cigarettes. With the extremely cheap Chinese labor the concern was able to sell twenty cigarettes for a cent of our money. Up to the be- ginning of this enterprise, about 1800, the Chinese had never used to- bacco, except in pipes and in very minute quantities and in rolling their own crude cigarettes. The concern was sending salesmen and demon- strators through the country to show the people how to smoke cigarettes. Now it is estimated that one-half of the cigarette consumption of the world is in China. In trying to lessen the opium evil, in which they have to a very considerable extent succeeded, the Chinese are merely substitut- ing the cigarette evil. It is well known to the confirmed opium smoker that he needs less opium if he smokes cigarettes. The Chinese are spending today twice as much money for tobacco as for opium. If any one thinks that China is the gainer by substituting one drug habit for the other I beg leave to differ. The opium smoker smokes in private with other smokers, and is thus not offensive to other people. He is not injuring non-smokers, or arousing the curiosity of boys, or polluting the atmosphere, or creating a craving in others. In the West the opium habit is generally condemned, because the west is able to look with a new and unbiased mind on a drug habit that is not its own. I consider that cigarette smoking is the greatest vice devastating humanity today, because it is doing more than any other vice to deteriorate the race. HOW LIFE AND PEACE COME To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life — and peace peace that comes by obedience to principle, peace that comes by overcoming habits, evil habits, peace that comes by selfmastery over appetite and over passion, the peace of the gospel of Jesus Christ. A man must earn his hour of peace, Must pay for it, with hours of strife and care, Must win by toil the evening's sweet release, The rest that may be portioned for his share. The idler never knows it, never can. Peace is the glory of the happy man, And man must win contentment for his soul, Must battle for it bravely day by day. The peace he seeks is not a nearby goal. To claim it he must tread a rugged way. The shirker never knows a tranquil peace, Peace but rewards the man who does his best. God help us as men of the Priesthood, as fathers and as mothers, to reach our boys and our girls, and impress upon them this great lesson, this divine truth that to be carnally minded is to be miserable, unhappy, perhaps not for the time being, but to lose part of our very life that to be spiritually minded, which means to obey the principles ; of the gospel in all that it means, is to have life, life eternal and peace, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.