--- 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: 33 number: 11 published: 1930-09 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, “Thought Habits,” *Improvement Era* 33, no. 11 (September 1930): 723–723." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3311unse 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: improvementera3311unse start_page: 723 end_page: 723 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1930-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3311unse publication_year: 1930 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 1930, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Thought Habits Thought Habits A PENNY for your thoughts!" This offer /-\ frequently leveled at people who apparently are immersed in meditation would often be a poor bargain for the purchaser. Correct thought habit is priceless, far more precious than gold, and with much greater purchasing power. Money will buy luxuriously furnished palaces, but not contentment; satisfy the palate of the epicure, but will not still his hunger for happiness; provide opportunities for education and development, but not knowledge or growth; purchase a ticket to foreign lands, but no ability to absorb information. Thought habits of the right sort will bring peace, happiness, knowledge, development, intellectuality, spirituality. They lift the afflicted mortal out of the Slough of Despond, and place him on the glorious mountain peak; at the same time they moderate the extravagant dreams of the enthusiast and place him amid sane surroundings. Developing as it will a normal, healthy, well-balanced mind, it will naturally do much toward the maintenance of physical strength. The man who thinks correctly will never lose sight of the eternal truth that "God's in his heaven, and all's well with the world." In such a mind dis- couragement finds no lodgment. As the most important difference between human beings and the lower animals lies in man's ability to think, so the difference between individual ex- cellence and mediocrity is seen in the varying quality of thought processes. He who is constantly broaden- ing his thought horizon, who thinks constructively and wisely, will as a matter of course be kind and cheerful, observant and studious, industrious and happy. Sa'di, the wise poet of Persia of the twelfth cen- tury, became a wandering lecturer. After enduring many hardships, he says: "Never did I complain of my forlorn condition but on one occasion when my feet were bare, and I had not wherewithal to shoe them. Soon after, meeting a man without feet, I was thankful for the bounty of providence to myself and with perfect resignation submitted to my want of shoes." Certainly never within the memory of men now living was there a time when it was more necessary calmly to think things through. The rapidly chang- ing events of the world, crowding as they do upon us, have a tendency to bewilder, almost to blind, thought faculties. It is time for a return to sane thinking, and surely the rewards offered for correct thought habits warrant the cultivation of persistent mental industry. — H. J. C. •nztfeffixii*— -<* The Disappearance of God A MONG the ten leading magazine articles for •*■*■ June is one by Henshaw Ward in Scvibnet's under the above title. His concluding sentence is significant: "The God that used to hear my prayers is disappearing, is being nebulized 6ut of existence by the Holmeses, the Ameses and Millikans." Mr. Ward refers to a book written by a former minister, and now the editor of a Christian magazine, and says: "After I have read it I can think of nothing but the massacre of God that is being made by the best religious thought of the day." Standing by the seagull monument on the Temple Block a few years ago, a noted California educator listened to the story of how the gulls saved the people from starvation. At its conclusion he said: "I can believe that the Almighty intervened to save a people as prayerful as were the pioneers." Then he went on to say: "The trouble with the world today is that to be considered educated a man must know all about the gods of mythology, but he need know nothing whatever about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob — the true and living God." The mission of the Improvement Era is solemnly to declare that the Almighty has again revealed him- self, together with his Son Jesus Christ, to men in this age and that he who seeks him in humble prayer need not seek in vain. Men may nebulize, or mas- sacre or throw him overboard; but he still lives and will continue to rule and reign.-—//. J. C.