Show 25 A NOVEL QUESTION civilization of millennial glory— again is it breathed into a new created world Such in brief is our view of Jlormonisnn “The' Latter-da- y Work” is therefore most deci-- ! dedly republican and identical with the Great American Declaration and Constitution Indeed most positively has this Church declared that Washington and his compeers were divinely moved to their work and that the Constitution was given by the inspiration of the Almighty Its Elders have also as positively declared that the work of those patriot Statesmen was to prejpare the way for the laying of the chief corner ' stone of glorious millennial fabric f We thetofore properly travel not in an opposite path to the one in which the American nation started on its birth on Independence day The truth is the ’body being created and fashioned to the design of the Great Euler of the world he breathes into it the soul and the new world starts into the culnynating civilK zation with anotherapostleship Joseph the prophet holds its keys In this religious apostleship and mission all that the declaration of inalienable rights conceded and all that the Constitution aimed for are embodied It : must also do as much in its sphere as the preparatory political and social mission did in its calling and must secure for humanity the greatest amount of rights liberties and progress Universal good universal progressiveness and universal rights were its aim and scope and noif the exclusive good and privileges of All the Ameri-- ! any select few or any one community can nation have had their parts in the work of the new dispensation as well as ourselves only some toil their day upon one part of the wall while others build another portion of the grand superstructure Granting that Mormonism has its ecclesiastical organization and rule its spirit principles and aims atfe in their integrity eminently republican aye more ’ - they are universalian ! Universal brotherhood universal good universal liberty universal truth and universal progress socially politically and religiously Such are printed on the programme of Mormonism we have dreamt it tobe and if it be but dreaming T still will we dream— still let us dream forever ' i A NOVEL QUESTION It is a well known fact that needs no argument here and novels are the that fiddles theatres particular products of the world the flesh and the devil We This was at any rate the ancient conclusion have however lived to find a religious community raised up that take a different view of these matters and who suppose that if the Creator has endowed us with faculties specially calculated to be delighted with such amusements it is because he means them to be gratified Although this is the general view taken of such matters by this community we occasionally still find a solitary individual who after being converted from point to point till he has been able to admit balls music and theatres as being innocent amusements when rightly conducted Still repudiates the unfortunate novel as he once repudiated the ball party and the theatre It was not long since that we listened to an oration from a friend of this description on a public platform This gentleman had spent the previous Saturday evening with intense delight at the theatre and he took the Sunday following to express his views on the injurious effects of novel reading Another friend of ours ball-parti- ' very honest man who also attends theatres with great zest was punctuated to the soul at the idea that novel reading should by furnished to this community for as he sagely remarked “ This people want truth and novels are merely a pack of lies” Supposing theatres when wisely conducted to be an admitted good we wish to ask this question — what We is the difference between a play and arnovel answer a play is a novel with the story told by men and women dressed up for the occasion a novel on the other hand is in effect a drama with the characters and scenery described by pen and ink instead of In being told by live men and women on a stage the drama the scenes are painted on cloth in colors in the novel they are painted with words and left to The man that writes the plays the mind to conceive very often writes the novels as well For instance Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer who wrote the “ Lady of Lyons” has written a number of beautiful and instructive works of fiction which we wish in due time Both novels and plays to present before our readers Both appeal to the to a certain extent are fictions imagination If by picturing something that never did occur one is proved to be a lie then the other must be a lie also But we contend that neither novels nor plays are necessarily lies A lie is the intention to deceive Neither playwrights nor novelists pretend that the scenes they picture occurred exactly as they represent themj It is well understood that both start to present pictures of real life and the goodness or badness of such pictures consists simply in the truthfulness or exaggeration with which such scenes are drawn It is true that some novels as our friend said tend to “ unfit men and women for the practical duties of life and fill their heads with ridiculous conceits ” but there are a large class of plays that do the same On the other hand a large number of both plays and novels do good service in fitting men and women for the realities of existence and it is this latter class If we do ever we wish to present before our readers present anything bordering on the sensational it will be on the same ground that we suppose such plays as the “Warlock of the Glen” have been placed before this community —because there are a variety of people to suit and all cannot enjoy the rigidly good They must therefore be treated as the man did his cow when he wanted to dose her with onions he gave her one apple to six onions and for the sake of the apples a- she swallowed the onions But now as to novels being lies ignorance only will lead men to say this On the contrary we assert that many of the novels of our high class writers of the day are full of the highest of truths They picture the deepest thoughts and emotions of man’s being If they have not any are ignorant of this it read such men as Dickens Bulwer DTsraeli and others If they had and reflected much they would find recorded within such works a picture of their own struggling souls —their own most penetrating views— their sublimest thoughts and the points that touch most their heart of hearts This would hap-pe- n because the really good novel writer does not as is supposed draw alone on his imagination for his characters but writes himself out and lays bare his own heart and his best reflections as food for his readers Although all this certainly is dressed up with incident and circumstances to give the matter variety and charm the chief aim is to tell under the guise of a story some facts that relate to universal man Ana in conclusion as to the question of introducing W |