--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 32 number: 7 published: 1929-05 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "*Improvement Era* 32, no. 7 (May 1929). Salt Lake City: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, May 1929." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3207unse 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: improvementera3207unse curator_note: Internet Archive issue scan; advertising and unpaginated plates omitted. rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1929-05) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3207unse publication_year: 1929 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 1929, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Improvement Era, May 1929 Improvement Era Vol. XXXII MAY, 1929 No. 7 The Greatest Seer of the Ages By Prof. J. E. Hickman WHEN our Father began his work anew in this dispensation it was assailed with unjustifiable bitterness. If men had taken Gamaliel's advice to the Jewish Sanhedrin and sus- pended judgment until "Mormonism" had died of its own weakness or had been vindicated in the earth as God's own cause, this nation would have been spared much humiliating history. When God reveals a truth the longer it is in the earth the truer it appears, for science and experience proclaim it. But the longer the theories of science are before the thinking world the more they are modified or eventually abandoned, for nothing kills or vindicates a theory so quickly as working it for all it is worth; but he who studies and works eternal truths proclaims their divinity and finds they need no modification. I am not disparaging science for I am a student and a lover of the same. When science discovers a truth it declares the Al- mighty's work. Science is an unsafe guide for men to stake their all and all on, but in divine revelation men can rest their cause — their hopes, their beliefs, their salvation. Yet an earnest scientist is a son of God trying to find out earth's truths. He is often in error but eventually science may discover all that the Almighty has revealed, and all that he may reveal for man is destined yet to discover every law by which he became God and by which the earth was formed. Science is the ox-cart method of discovering truth, for often centuries after the Lord has proclaimed a truth, science, through her slow and belated methods, finally appears on the scene with the proof of the revelation of long ago. Unfortunately some withhold their wholehearted belief in heavenly revelations until they have heard the voice of science on the matter. None such can stand in the vanguard of thought and progress. Pure intelligence far outruns the belated utterance of proof. Yet our hearts rejoice when our beliefs are vindicated through collateral evidence. Science is a good servant but an unreliable guide when meas- ured by the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So far, science has been the false Messiah, for it led men from our Father in heaven