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AUTUMN LEAVES

ELBERT A. SMITH, Editor

Published Monthly for the Youth of the Reorganized
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints by
the Herald Publishing House, Lamoni, Iowa.
Entered as second-class matter at Lamoni post-office.

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AUTUMN LEAVES

Volume 24

JULY, 1911

Number 7

Self-Control.

By John Zahnd.

ELF-CONTROL is a broad definition for temperance in all things. When a man's better nature is in the ascendancy and every bodily inclination is held in subjection, the highest ideals are reached. Much is involved in the brief declaration of the great apostle, "I keep my body under." The welfare of every soul for time and eternity is based upon this great principle. Vice and intemperance in all its forms are the direct result of the mind being held in subjection to bodily desires.

God speaks to men in a manner to be understood, only through the excercise of mental faculties. He has therefore ordained that the mind shall be endowed with all the essentials of administrative power. The intellect enacts, the will executes, the judgment approves or condemns. It is the divine purpose that the entire physical organism shall be subject to this perfectly appointed government.

Physical desires for inordinate self-indulgence are the anarchists who are constantly seeking to overthrow this, the highest of all human governments; and to the degree that they are successful the individual lowers himself in the scale of physical, mental, and moral attainments.

A sad feature of this psychological truth lies in the fact that the power of the will to control is gradually lost if it is not exercised. In this the common law holds true, that weakness follows a lack of exercise. On the other hand, an obedience to the will strengthens that faculty of the mind and makes it easier to resist evil. Thus is emphasized the importance of our people being impressed with the absolute necessity of a constant exercise of the will until its demands shall be the faithful execution of the enactments of the mind, and all the course of life be under this control. This is keeping "the body under."

Every step in this course is in the direction of a higher life— a purer and nobler manhood and womanhood. The term self-denial is used to denote this noble exercise. The Master delivered a most impressive and comprehensive lesson when he said, "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Self-denial calls for a great deal of self-control, in order that we may hold our lives in subjection to the will of Christ. In order to do this it requires keen forethought, as to the outcome of our conduct in our daily lives. We often do not realize

what even the self-denial of a few words, spoken in haste, might mean to others, if we had the proper self-control not to speak them.

How well it would be if we endeavored to hold ourselves in control, even though it might pain us at times to do so. However, the endurance is short, and we can soon see that self-restraint was for our good. It is true that we can often see an injustice placed against us, and then it seems hard to exercise self-control. But let us think what it meant to our Master when he was maligned before Pilate. Yet he spoke not a word, with all the false accusations placed against him. That to me was a noble silence, a wonderful example of self-control.

United America a Possibility.

By R. J. Farthing.

The following oration was delivered by a young Canadian before an audience composed almost entirely of citizens of the United States. The author, R. J. Farthing, of London, Ontario, is a Graceland College student. His oration won first place in the annual Graceland College oratorical contest, at Lamoni, Iowa, May 13, 1911. It will be read with interest, not only because it gives the reader a glimpse of an interesting subject from a Canadian viewpoint, but also as showing the capabilities of Graceland College students.-EDITOR.

SPEAK to you as Americans. I also am an American -a British American. The people of your country and of mine are essentially the same, of the same speech and race, and with similar institutions-yes, and each having as strong a love of liberty and as sincere a

devotion to the cause of human freedom.

It has been well said that America is a soil upon which liberty thrives. It is true of all America. I ask, What if the budding plant of liberty did first bloom between the Atlantic and the Alleghenies? It was not destined to bloom there only. There was a wider field and a more glorious heritage. The plant that first drew its strength from Virginian soil and flourished beneath the New England skies has developed in power and majesty, till its roots now reach the Golden Gate of the Pacific, and trusting in its shadow all the republics of America find security.

Thus is justified the prophetic vision of that great American statesman, your President Monroe, who with farseeing eye ninety years ago announced the political doctrine which yet bears his name and which has since become the steadfast policy of your country. The announcement of that doctrine in 1823 made the United States the guardian of the sacred liberties of the newborn nations of Central and South America, who then had just succeeded in throwing off the despotic yoke of Spanish oppression and escaping the thraldom of Portuguese political bondage. The inauguration of that policy places Monroe among the great nation builders of the New World. You had no statesman greater before, but Washington: there has been none greater since, but Lincoln.

But think not that the blossoms of American liberty shed their

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