est one or two generations ago, but which ought never to be heard today out of a museum of relics. So, too, it often happens that Elders on missions acquire so little versatility that on being called to preach at home they launch into a rote sermon, quite oblivious to the fact that they are talking to the Saints, and not to a congregation of unbelievers.

Let every Elder called upon to address the Saints, ask himself the question: Is this of present interest? and it will greatly aid him in avoiding the hackneyed subjects that so often make our meetings dreary. If he discover that he knows nothing about other subjects, let him somehow find the moral courage to sit down, and then prepare himself better for the next opportunity.

3. The subject should be suited to the intelligence of the congregation. Instinctively the speaker should feel when he is not being understood; should perceive instantly waves of intelligence or of doubt as they pass over the audience, like the alternate lights and shades made by fleecy clouds on a summer day. He will thus be able to adapt his thought and diction to the varying needs of his hearers. This rule is oftenest violated in talks before the Sunday Schools, which generally go over the heads of all, save the teachers. But

it is also the fault of young Elders, dangerously puffed up with a 'little learning." They find it so hard to curb their vanity, so delightful to air their scrap of knowledge and enjoy the blank stare of their elder brethren and sisters. Set it down as a rule, that the Elder who thus loves to mystify by grandiloquent words and obscure allusions, is thinking mainly of himself. He speaks, not by the clear, steady light of the Spirit of Truth, but by the accumulated gas product of his own vanity.

4. Only such subjects should be chosen 6.S are interesting to the speaker. It need scarcely be argued that what is not interesting to him,

he will utterly fail to make interesting to the congregation. Moreover, want of interest in a subject is prima facie evidence of want of knowledge at least of fresh, vigorous knowledge-concerning it. He should, therefore, avoid the subject for the further reason that he would be wasting the time of his hearers in mere general assertions and dreary platitudes. If this rule were invariably followed, three-fourths of our sermons would be on stock-raising, commerce, or farming. What then? Better far to be kept awake by a fresh, vigorous, specific talk on how to irrigate, so as to raise good crops, than to be put to sleep by drowsy emptinesses on a spiritual subject. Of course it is the spiritual subject that we come to be stirred up concerning. But if the Elder cannot stir us-because he is not stirred himself-let him speak upon a subject in which he can stir us; or, better still, let him give way to the Elder who can interest us in what we came to hear. If we will be guided by the Spirit in the choice of a subject, it will always be chosen from that part of our mind-stores in which we are interested; for the Spirit delights not in scraps and mouldy crusts, and it can find fresh food to draw from only where our ideas are alive and growing. Let us then make it a rule only to speak on those subjects in which we are interested; and if we are not interested in what should be talked about, let us not talk, but sit and be ashamed of our indolence.

5. The speaker should choose only such subjects as command his entire belief. The tippler and tobaccouser will make a poor sermon on the Word of Wisdom Even if it be faultless rhetorically, it will lack the Gospel ring, for the Spirit does not lend itself to hypocrisy. The first requisite of a preacher is a testimony of the Gospel-an abiding, an everburning testimony. It is not enough that an Elder have a passive belier

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in a subject in order to speak well upon it; his belief must be active so active as to dominate him, if he would make others believe in it.

6. A subject ought not to be attempted that is beyond the powers of the speaker. If this rule be followed it will stop much vain speculation as to the seventh heaven and kindred subjects that may belong to theology but do not belong to the Gospel, at least in this life. It will also be of aid to the young Elder who, dazzled

4. "We all have our agency to choose the good and refuse the evil, or to choose the evil and refuse the good, for the Lord forces no man to heaven neither does He tempt any man to do evil.”

5. "A man cannot leave this Church without the power of God leaves him. It has been the power. of the Priesthood that has made men great, and no man can handle this Priesthood only as God wills. 6. "In my opinion the character of a person is formed between childhood and the age of eighteen."

7. "As I have received the good and evil, the fruits of obedience and disobedience, I think I am justified in exhorting all my young friends to

Sentiments presented at the Young Ladies' Reunion in the Fourteenth Ward, Salt Lake -City.

8.

obey the whisperings of the Spirit of God and they will always be safe." "Whenever you are blessed with any good thing be willing to share it with others."

9. "I am living on borrowed time and I know not how long I shall be permitted to remain here, but I wish to bear my testimony to you that this work is true."

IO. "It is better for us to fall in

the defense of truth than to deny the words of God and go to hell."

II. "I would rather seal my testimony with my blood and lay my body to rest in the grave and have my spirit go to the other side of the truth, blessing, and a knowledge veil to enjoy a long eternity of light, that the Lord will bestow upon every man who keeps His laws, than to spend a few short years of earthly pleasures and be deprived of these blessings and the society of my friends and brethren behind the veil."

I 2.

"You will lose nothing by honoring your fathers and redeeming your dead, for it is a glorious work."

13. "We will soon pass to the other side of the veil but let us do our duty while we are here."

14.

"The spirit of God labors and Strives to preserve all the children of men from evil, and the Lord gives

His angels charge concerning us and they do all in their power for our salvation."

15. In the testimony of a lifetime addressed to the Y. M. M. I. A. he said: "I have confidence in you to believe that you will qualify yourselves for the great duty and work that lie before you." After tonight may he feel the same confidence in the young ladies.

16. "This work depends on no man or set of men; God can and will fill any man's place who proves himself unworthy, and He will permit no man to lead this people astray.'

17. "The spirit of revelation belongs to the Priesthood."

18. "We are blessed with power and authority to redeem both the living and the dead."

19. "The Lord is determined to raise up a people that will worship Him, and if He has to whip and Scourge and drive us through a whole generation, He will chastise us until we are willing to submit to righteousness and truth, or until we are like clay in the hands of the potter."

21.

prophets, elders, and saints to rejoice. It has nerved up their spirits with fortitude and strength, and borne them up against every opposing influence; this has been the case in every dispensation when this light and power have been enjoyed by the children of men."

25. "I knew the Prophet Joseph both in public and in private, have worshiped with him, and run horse races with him over the public square, and in every duty of life he was a man to be loved and revered."

GOOD ADVICE.

THE following advice, given some time ago by General Sherman, is worthy of attention by young men of today:

"One half of the evils that beset the path of young men starting in life come from the neglect of their parents to educate them in the use of money. Not that all parents, or even most of them, are extravagant with their sons' allowance, or that they do not give them a great deal of advice on the subject of economy. But they do not, in the strictest sense of the word, make the proper use of money a part of their education. They restrain, but they do not guide. As boys' needs and desires increase, they are too apt to be met with only increasing difficulty in getting money, interposed often in such a form as to stimulate rather than regulate their appetite for spending. It is hard for parents to realize that sooner or later their sons must

Ghost."

23. "The time is here when the veil shall be lifted, and the hearts of the young men and women shall be turned to the work of the Lord."

24. "This Gospel has caused

money to use or waste, to save or invest, according to their own judg

Nor

ment, and that mere restriction in the allowance of money does not fit them for the temptations, difficulties, and perplexities of this important part of the business of life. should it be forgotten that a great proportion of the dishonesty which is so common in our modern communities, flows from the want of

proper training of young men in the employment of money.

"The old Roman rule, that the debtor was to be regarded always as the possible slave of the creditor, is not now a basis of legal action, and American law no longer allows imprisonment for innocent debt. But neither the Roman rule nor our own former practice was without its basis of reason and equity. It is common to speak of the oppressed debtor, but in most cases debt is a voluntary thing. Few men incur it from necessity. In the great majority of cases, men who cannot pay their debts, especially young men, might have been able to do so if they had not wasted their means. A very small percentage of debtors habitually cut down their expenditures to the lowest possible point. Indeed, they would generally be considered 'mean' if they did so. The economies necessary for a man of small means to keep out of debt are very petty in amount and in character. They are inevitably annoying and irksome, and the strain on the will is constant. It is quite easy to regard them as contemptible. But they are in reality the reverse of that. They are essentially noble, and they add to, instead of detracting from, the dignity of the man who is capable of them. The old law was based on this fact, and punished and degraded the man who would not deny himself to pay his debts.

"Borrowed money, where the debtor does not know how he is to pay, and has no clear resources to depend on, is not the money of the borrower, but of the lender. And where the motive of the lender is not one of friendship, and the credit is given as a matter of business, no man has any right to borrow without knowing that he can pay, any more than he has the right to swindle. The promise of payment in such case is essentially a false pretense, and as unjustifiable as any other form of deception."

RISING IN THE WORLD.

Experience continually contradicts the notion that a poor young man cannot rise. If we look over the list of rich men, we find that nearly all of them began life worth little or nothing. To any person familiar with the millionaires of the United States, a score of examples will occur. On the other hand, the sons of rich men, who began life with the capital which so many poor young men covet, frequently die beggars. It would probably not be going too far to say that a large majority of such moneyed individuals either fail outright or gradually eat up the capital with which they commenced their career.

And the reason is plain. Brought up in expensive habits, they spend entirely too much. Educated with notions of personal importance, they will not, as they phrase it, stoop to hard work. Is it astonishing, therefore, that they are passed in the race of life by others with less capital originally, but more energy, thrift and industry? For these virtues, after all, are worth more than money. They make money, in fact. Nay, after it is made, they enable the possessor to keep it, which most young men pronounce to be more difficult than the making. The young man who begins life with a resolution always to lay by a part of his income is sure, even without extraordinary ability, gradually to acquire a sufficiency, especially as habits of enonomy, which the resolution renders necessary, will make that a competence for him which would be quite insufficient for an extravagant person. It is really what we save, more than what we make, which lead us to fortune. He who enlarges his sxpenses as fast as his earnings incraese must always be poor, no matter what his abilities. And content may be had on comparatively little. It is not in luxurious living that men find real happiness.