--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Davis, Caddie collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 26 number: 7 published: 1923-05 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Caddie Davis, "Woman’s Highest Honor—Motherhood", *Improvement Era* 26, no. 7 (May 1923): 606–608.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2607unse 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: improvementera2607unse start_page: 606 end_page: 608 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1923-05) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2607unse publication_year: 1923 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 1923, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Woman’s Highest Honor—Motherhood Woman's Highest Honor — Motherhood By Caddie Davis The Latter-day Saints have often been ridiculed on account of their belief in the pre-existence of spirits, and in marrying for time and for all eternity, both being Bible doctrines. A lady may ask: Where did I come from? What is my origin? What am I doing here? Whither am I going? And what is my destiny, after having obeyed the truth, if faithful to the end? We will endeavor to answer the questions in brief, as we understand them. We understand that our heavenly Father has worked out a plan for man's sahation. They who kept their first estate shall be added upon, and they who kept their second estate shall be added upon for ever and ever. Among the Latter-day Saints one Bible quotation has become a maxim to the effect that to be perfect in the sight of the Lord, man is not without the wom>an nor the woman without the man. We believe that marriage is a part of that plan. We are told in Ecclesiastes 3:14, that "whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever:" nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it, so marriage was not for time alone but for all eternity. The Latter-day Saints' salvation is not complete without marriage and that in the temple. After marriage the Latter-day Saint girl by the name wife, must endeavor to gain greater heights. The priesthood is not received nor held nor exercised in any degree by the women of the Church; but nevertheless the women of the Church enjoy the blessings of the priesthood through their husbands. This em- phasizes very strongly the importance of marriage. During wifehood the woman prepares herself for a greater work, that greater work is the sacred one of motherhood. You will remember that the commandments given to Adam and, E\e were that they should multiply and replenish the earth. We believe that in heaven there were and are many spirits ready to come down here and take bodies; our heavenly Father had to prepare some way to receive those spirits, and he gave that great work to the mothers. Now we see that marriage, WOMAN'S HIGHEST HONOR 607 wifehood, and moherhood, are closely related. Every woman in the Church of mature age and worthiness, who is amhitious to attain to exaltation and glory hereafter should get married, should be sealed to a man for time and all eternity. Now we conceive that woman came from the hand of God who made it her mission and duty in coming on earth to be- come a mother. We cannot conceive that the holy mother bemoaned any limitations of her sex, but she has been an object of adoration all the centuries because she glorified womanhood by being richer in love, pity, unselfish devotion and intuition than man. It is much more whole and holy to be a mother than to be artist, orator, professor, or expert. But we fear that modern woman, at least, in more ways than one, is in danger of declining from her sphere or the plan God made her duty, by following other pro- fessions than motherhood. Thus she is coming to lack, confi- dence and pride in her sex as such, and is just now in danger of lapsing into mannish ways, methods, ideals, until her orig- inal divinity may be obscured. There certainly are not duties more sacred; none more hon- orable, none more sweetly resting under the constant benedic- tion of heaAen than those of the mother. There is no other being who can do so much for a child as she, there is no one else who can do so much for a motherless child as a Christian woman. Man cannot take her place, and she can never leave it or neglect its duties without dishonor to herself and disaster to society. To be charged with the Christian nurture and training of the rising generation is to hold the highest and most momentous trust that has ever been placed in human hands. The safety of society — nay the salvation of the world is in- volved in it, not emperor nor president can honor himself more than by honoring the woman who does her duty to the young and neither has the power to confer an office of greater dig- nity than that with which God crowns every Christian mother. The woman who trains her family and rules her household well, fills and honors the highest office the world has for her; and whenever a wife or mother steps out of such a place she steps down even though her steps lead her to a throne, for all the steps that woman takes, without a recognition of the fact that her highest office is that of presiding over a family, all the steps that she takes with the idea that there is something better and higher than home and its trusts and duties, are downward steps, thronged with mischief to her and disaster to the future of society. 608 IMPROVEMENT ERA g While, if they fill their Christian duty, crowns, thrones exaltation and dominions are in resen e for them in the eternal worlds, and the way is opened for them to return back into the presence of the heavenly Father, if they will only abide by, and walk in a celestial law, fulfil the designs of their creation, and hold out to the end, that when mortality is laid in the tomb they will go down to their grave in peace, arise in glory, and receive their everlasting reward in the resurrection of the just along with their head and husband. Sugar, Idaho. You Are A Believer By Joseph S. Peery President Levi Edgar Young had addressed the mission- aries, on Temple Block, on conscience being a strong evidence of our divine origin. The next day a guide applied the instruction given. He was talking on faith in God, quoting President Abraham Lin- coln as saying, "If God is with me, I cannot fail." An aged gentleman said, "I don't belie\e anything of what you are saying." The guide answered, "Why, brother, you are a believer." The aged tourist retaliated, "No, I am a skeptic." Not to be daunted, the guide continued: "I can see in your face that you are a believer. You are an honorable man of earth. You keep your word, stand well in the community where you live, and you know the difference between right and wrong, don't you?" The gentleman assented, and the guide followed by ask- ing, "What is that thing within you that checks you when you go wrong and encourages you in doing right?" The stranger answered, "I don't know." The guide remarked, "Neither did Kant, the philosopher, know, who wrote that two things baffled his comprehension: First, the starry heavens: secondly, the power of man to desig- nate right from wrong. Brother, the reason is on account of your faith in God. He wants you, and is working to save you with his Holy Spirit." The man came up to the guide later on, shook hands with him, and said: "I have met some of your missionaries and like your doctrine better than any other." He went away a friend, in a receptive mood, to learn more of the good word.