--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Evans, John Henry collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 28 number: 12 published: 1925-10 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Evans, John Henry, “The Heritage and Promise,” *Improvement Era* 28, no. 12 (October 1925): 1135–1138." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera28012unse 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: improvementera28012unse start_page: 1135 end_page: 1138 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1925-10) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera28012unse publication_year: 1925 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 1925, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Heritage and Promise THE HERITAGE AND PROMISE By John Henry Evans Author of "One Hundred Years of Mormonism." PART III "Mormonism" is in the world to stay. It has the irrevocable promise of the Great God that it shall never be destroyed nor left to another people, but that it shall break in pieces all inferior, merely temporary powers and itself shall stand forever. And this because it has in it the elements that survive, the elements that pba history have constantly recurred in both individuals and peoples of any real worth, the elements that made of early Christianity a religion of power among men. But "Mormonism" must be put across to the races of the earth. A big job, calling for intelligence, vision, and purposeful will. And it must be put over, not by supermen and superwomen, but certainly by men and women who shall have been prepared for the undertaking — the children of those in the main who, under God, founded this "marvelous work and a wonder," that is to put to shame the wisdom of the merely worldly wise. Those who do not know "Mormonism" or who know it but imperfectly may smile at the idea. But a religion that stresses the eternal verities and gets these verities over into the being and the purpose of its adherents is as sure to survive the scorn of unbelievers as a great natural force in the physical world will be able to withstand the frantic and puny arm of mere man in an effort to thwart or turn aside its onward movements. , Never have there occurred conditions more favorable to the development of leadership than those in which the "Mormon" youth find themselves. Any young man or woman who will become active in the church will gradually come into possession of a truly enviable power to lead, a power such as he would be unlikely to acquire any- where outside a "Mormon" community. In the various auxiliary and priesthood organizations of the church, in the home and foreign .nission work, and in the numerous activities, social and civic, of his community he may beget social freedom of movement, cultivate a knowledge of men and affairs, and develop a facility and accuracy of thinking and speaking on his feet that are bound to tell powerfully in any effort at leadership. But it is in the spirit and genius of "Mormonism" that the young Latter-day Saint will find his principal source of inspiration for leadership in the largest and finest scale. "Most of the individuals we acclaim as great and," says Professor Hudson in his remarkable book, The Truths We Live By, "most outstanding civilizations have been characterized by what we might call moral confidence. 1136 IMPROVEMENT ERA The golden age of Greece built its glory with it; the Reformation was on fire with it; the French Revolution valiantly transformed a social order by it; the American people created a new democracy upon it. It has been the common attribute of vastly diverse personalities, separated by time and dif- fering widely in genius, such as Socrates. Dante, Jeanne d'Arc, Lincoln, Foch. It is the fundamental virtue of contemporary ri^en of action who rise significantly above their fellows. This moral confidence is a confidence that there is a veritable distinction between what is right ana what is wrong, that one knows what this distinction is, and that by no possible accident may one's fealty to the right be ultimately betrayed by failure or by disproof. Such moral confidence begets sacrifice, even to much suffering. Such men as possess it have causes which they are not only willing to live for, but to die for. There can be no greater confidence than this. Moral confidence may or may not be misplaced; but moral confidence in something is absolutely essential to any man and to any civilization, if persistently courageous deeds are to be done." Professor Hudson then goes on to discuss the conditions of moral confidence. The first condition is, "a conviction that the universe is, at bottom, a moral order; that is an order in which righteousness will certainly triumph." A second condition is that "one has a chance to choose the right rather than the wrong; that in some sense or other, one is responsible for his choice, that one Ss not 'fated,' but free." And he goes on to say that "this is why in all ages confidence in the moral order has carried with it some beliefs favorable or unfavorable, but nevertheless decisive, concerning God, Immortality and Freedom." Then he adds this significant statement: "In examining our age we find it to be not only an age of moral skepticism, but of religious skepticism as well. Now, as moral and religious confidence are necessary to one another, so do moral and religious doubt re-inforce one another, so that our age turns out to be not only an age of moral skepticism, but an age in which the indispensable religious conditions of such moral confidence as would displace doubt do not surely exist. The greatest truth for any ethical reconstruction at this time is this: Since moral confidence cannot be restored without a confidence in whatever verities make it possible, we need a new grounding of these verities that will appeal to the critical intelligence of our own day." Now, moral confidence is the very stuff out of which Latter-day Saints are made. It exists in them to the same degree, at least, that it did in the persons and peoples mentioned by Professor Hudson. It would be easily within the limits of the truth to say that there is no community on earth to-day in whose separate individuals moral confidence shows itself at such a high point as it does in the members of the "Mormon" church. They believe that God the Father and His Son Jesus (Christ appeared to the founder of their faith, just as really as Deity manifested Himself to any of the prophets of the Old and the New Testament. Thus they have a ground work for faith in the personality of God and in his concern for man that is totally lacking in a people who depend merely upon the accounts in the Bible of visions in which He appeared. They believe in Immortality in a wider and deeper sense than can be found anywhere else in the world to-day, except in such THE HERITAGE AND PROMISE 113 7 thinkers as Maeterlinck, the Belgian philosopher and man of letters. For they set forth in theology that man in his essential being is co-eternal with God, that, as he will have no! end, neither did he have any beginning. They believe most earnestly in the moral order of the universe, that righteousness, however it may be buffetted. about in time and apparently defeated, will surely triumph in the end even here, that the "war in heaven" forever decided the question of man's free agency to choose the right rather than the wrong. And they believe, moreover, that God has committed into their hands the gigantic task of building up a faith in these eternal verities, ^efore the second advent in power of the Son of God to reign in person on the renewed earth in universal peace and good will among men. , , , And they believe in these things as confidently as they believe in the tangible realities of their own physical existence. For they have subjected them to as definite and positive tests as can be applied to material objects: "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." No man ever spoke with more utter conviction than Joseph Smith respecting the reality of his first vision: "I have thought since, that I felt much like Paul, when he made his defense before King Agrippa, and related the account of the vision he had when he saw a light, and heard a voice; but still there were few who believed him; some said he was dishonest, others said he was mad; and he was ridiculed and reviled. But all this did not destroy the reality of his vision. He had seen a vision, he knew he had, and all the persecution under heaven could not make it otherwise; and though they should persecute him unto death, yet he knew, and would know to his latest breath, that he had both seen a light and heard a voice speaking unto him, and all the world could not make him think or believe otherwise. So it was with me. I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two personages, and they did in reality speak to me; and though I was hated and persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true; and while they were persecuting me, reviling me, and speaking all manner of evil against me, falsely, for so saying, I was led to say in my heart, why persecute me for telling the truth? I have actually seen a vision, and who am I that I can withstand God, or why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it, at least I knew that by so doing, I would offend God, and come under condemnation." Nor is this sort of knowledge confined to Joseph Smith. It is shared by the hundreds of thousands of men and women who have embraced the faith and passed on to their reward or continued in the flesh. Not only have they experienced the natural fruits of an industrious and upright life, but they have received such spiritual manifestations of the divine power and goodness as completely satisfy them of his mercy and loving kindness. And it has been under the influenece of this moral confidence that they have lived and fought and sacrificed; that they have made roads where there were no roads, built fences where there were no fences, put water and beef where there were no water and beef, made grass and trees and flowers to grow where none grew before, and did a work, generally, which nothing 1138 IMPROVEMENT ERA can undo and which will make millions happier for it after the workers are dead: that compels them to spend millions of dollars in erecting and maintaining churches and temples, in which they can worship God in a simple way and in which they can do "work" for both the living and the dead, thus uniting and saving all the children of men in a universal brotherhood; that urges them to expend other millions in money and unmeasured values in time and energy and material sacrifice carrying the message of the Restoration to the ends of the earth, so that every soul shall be "left without excuse" when the time of reckoning shall have arrived and all men are judged "according to the deeds done in the flesh." And it is under the influence of this moral confidence that they hope to "carry on" in the great task which has been imposed upon them to establish faith again in the hearts of the children of men. Young men and women of "Mormondom," will you square your shoulders and set your feet to carry safely the burden in the heat of the day which will presently fall upon you in all its heavy weight? Will you lift up the ensign and plant it further on up the heights than your parents were able to bear it? If so, you must stick to the faith of your fathers; you must exhibit the same qualities of character they possessed. To be sure you may not be required to give up long-cherished ideas to espouse the New Faith, whether in this or in a foreign land. You may not be called upon to grapple with the same material environment in which they fought their fight and won. But you will need, perhaps- even more than they, the essential qualities of industry, virtue, honor, integrity, faith through which they worked upward into truth. For depend upon it, you will have your antagonist in the strife and dust of battle. The point is, with what weapons will you fight your foe? In the grime and blood of the arena, with the eyes of the world, the eyes of your people, and the eyes of your God upon you, you will need all the presence of mind you can muster, all the courage, all the strength, all the upholding forces in life. "Don't flinch; don't foul; hit the line hard!" (The End) Say A Kind Word As you jog along life's road, It may not be yours to give Joys and sorrows you will find; Wealth to those who needy are — But there's one thing I would have Just as sweet a place is filled Each and all to bear in mind — By the daisy as the star. It will sweeten your own way, Time and strength you may not have It may save some brother man, In your life's allotted span It is this, and only this, For great things — but yet you may "Say a kind word when you can." "Say a kind word when you can." L. D. S. Maori Agricultrual College., REIHANA H. KARAHA. Hastings, New Zealand.