A Forgotten Voice

DITO A Forgotten Voice Barely four score years have passed since Samuel F. B. Morse sent over the telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore the now historic message, "What hath God wrought." To be exact, this was on May 24. 1844, thirty-four days before the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Prior thereto, messages, no matter what their urgency, were sent by mail or by spe- cial messengers. Steamships and steam locomotives were invented, or at least came into practical commercial use. some years before the tele- graph. Robert Fulton built his first steam- boat model in 1802. and his first large boat was given a trial on the Seine, in France, two years later, but proved too slow and unwieldy. On August 7, 1807, less than two years after the Prophet's birth, Fulton's Clermont ran successfully on the Hudson. George Stephenson drove his first locomotive in 1814 at the Killing- worth colliery, in England. Naturally it was imperfect. In the contest between lo- comotives on the Liverpool-Manchester line in 1829, his engine, "Rocket," was an easy victor, attaining the. at that time, phenomenal speed of thirty-two miles an hour. Intervening years have brought marvel- ous changes. Now scientists are proclaim- ing that an exact reproduction of the sender's penmanship — delivering a facsimile of the original telegram — is al- most an accomplished fact; and all are familiar with the improvements in steam- ships and in railway trains since they en- tered the fields of transportation. Within the memory of men still in their prime, telephones, automobiles and airplanes have come into existence. These men will remember when such things were considered chimerical dreams, viewed as less likely of fulfillment than the oft-re- peated suggestion that we shall shortly be able to communicate with the inhabitants of Mars. Now a telephone is found in al- most every home and one can speak across the continent, even across the ocean, and it is possible at the same time to see the per son to whom one is talking. Telephones not only transmit messages, but they are now used to send pictures. Automobiles are so common as seriously to menace the lives of pedestrians. The airplane, whirring noisily overhead, no longer attracts a curious upward glance. Between dawn and dusk one of our own Utah boys has flown from New York to San Francisco, and now men and even women fly in heavier-than-air machines from America to Europe. Children, still young, have watched the development of the motion picture and the radio. We not only see the actors on the silver screen, but we also hear them speak. A man in Salt Lake delivered a sermon over the radio which his son in Los Angeles distinctly heard. Within the last few days, newspapers have estimated that forty mil- lion people listened to the acceptance speeches of the two presidential nominees. They were heard as far away as New Zea- land, and those in that remote land who tuned in heard the speakers' words a frac- tion of a second before the people on the extreme edge of the crowd who were ac- tually in their presence. That we may soon tune in for motion pictures in our own homes as we now do for the concerts and lectures which come over the air is now almost an accomplished fact. Recent experiments by the Westing- house Electric Company indicate that this has passed the imaginary and almost the experimental stage and is now being done. It prompts the prediction that a far-away tourist will soon be able to project a motion picture of himself into his own home.

1056 IMPROVEMENT ERA No vision of man's power to achieve is too fanciful to seem beyond belief. Ap- parently there are no limits to his possi- bilities. Many people feel that an unreasonable demand is being put upon their credulity when they are asked to believe that the Almighty has spoken to man, that prayers are answered, or that the sick are healed. They cannot believe that through a divine whisper or by other means the Lord can give to a humble supplicant a positive knowledge of certain unseen things. Joseph Smith claimed that in the spring of 1820, he saw and spoke with the Father and the Son, but because this declaration contradicted their own experiences most people felt it could not be true. That man can project his voice or his vision around the world they do not doubt, though they themselves, perhaps, have never done it. Toward the middle of the seventeenth century, the French government imprisoned as a madman Salomon de Caus, the first man, as far as we now know, to suggest the use of steam to propel a vessel. To- ward the middle of the nineteenth century, a mob in the United States killed Joseph Smith, the first man in this dispensation to say that the Almighty is willing and able to communicate with his children. There is a close relationship between the impelling spirit in the commission of both these crimes. According to the ideas of an appallingly large number of present-day people, there is but one Being in the universe who is limited; that Being is God, called, by these same people, the Almighty. Man, the Creator's mortal handiwork, can speak or fly or see across a continent or an ocean; he can perform miracles undreamed of a generation ago; he can overcome nearly all the formerly accepted laws of nature; but, according to men's notions, his immortal Creator sits, majestic and glorious but im- potent, surrounded by barriers beyond which he cannot pass. The venerable Sir Oliver Lodge declared in a recent address that "science, with all its great work, has not eliminated the ac- cumulated witness of the ages." The Latter-day Saints rejoice in the comforting assurance that the God of heaven and earth is still mightier than frail mortals. They refuse to ignore or mini- mize his divine power. If man's voice can be heard around the world, the Lord can speak from heaven; if Lindbergh can fly across the Atlantic and appear in Paris, our Heavenly Father can manifest himself to his servants; if a man in London can see the person with whom he is talking in New York, the Creator can see and under- stand the hearts of his children. God is still what the word ALMIGHTY denotes, all-powerful, omnipotent, and it would be a most wholesome thing for the world if it would cultivate the same grateful spirit of acknowledgment as that embodied in the first telegraphic message, "What hath God wrought." In this age of unbelief it is as the voice of one crying in the wilder- ness.— C. Benjamin Disraeli wound up his maiden speech, which was a dismal failure, in the House of Commons as follows: "Now, Mr. Speaker, we see the philosophical pre- judices of Man. (Laughter and cheers.) I respect cheers, even when they come from the mouth of a political opponent. (Renewed laughter.) I think, sir, (Hear! Hear! and repeated cries of Question!) I am not at all surprised, sir, at the reception 1 have met with. (Continued laughter.) I have begun several things many times (laughter), and I have always succeeded at last. (Question!) Aye, sir, and though I sit down now, the time will come when you will hear me."