ened and made warmer than those of earth, is undesirable for contemplation, for the picture of it there is no place in the drawing room of our de

sires.

No matter who or what is there,
For all its bounties, who would care,
Without earth's loved ones there to share?

Our joy will be full with the consciousness that each of our loved ones has his relative share. Men cannot be saved in perpetual loneliness.

When the prodigal son said, “I will arise," he uttered more than he knew. The home-coming yearning always lifts, and a yielding to the impulse elevates the soul, and when it is accompanied by a willingness to get back through the door of repentance, the ear of divine love catches the soul-cry and the Father of all hastens to meet the returning wanderer with his parental heart full of forgiveness, hands outstretched to lead him to the feast, the temporary guest of honor, to finally find his place for which he has proven his ability, a position of trust in great things, parallel with his proved capacity to handle small things.

But the permanent guest of honor at the great hereafter home-coming is he who, with pole-star fidelity, stood by his Father and whose temporary flush of irritation, by a seeming act of injustice, was cooled by the chiding of his momentary selfishness, with the reminder that all that his Fatur has is his. The Father has his sons, both sons have a father and a father's love. One has kept his full inheritance, a part of which is the unmarred confidence of his Father.

As to the call for the great homecoming hereafter, the company, the conditions, and the procedure, the

3. Show how one energetic member of the family may initiate a family homecoming.

4. Illustrate the value of a wide distribution of the programmed exercises as a means of securing a good attendance at a family home-coming.

5. Show the value of a paper on family achievements being made a part of the home-coming program.

6. Discuss the mortgaging of homes.

7. In what way does a community homecoming benefit both the community and the home-comers?

8. What organizations civic and ecclesiastical may unite in providing for community home-coming?

9. Discuss this problem: School homecomings have two great objects, the promotion of alumni gatherings and the fostering of the institution.

10. Where was the first great family home-coming held, and what is yet to take place there? (For description of this place see Church History, Vol. 3, pages 34-40.)

11. Which two lines of the hymn, "Come to me" would be your choice for a memory gem?

Introduction.-Neighborliness in this lesson shall stand for civil, peaceful, kind, helpful treatment of one person by another, it shall mean the social application of the Golden Rule. Neighborliness made up of such conduct is man's part of making the millennium; it represents the Abou Ben Adam side of salvation.

Neighborliness does not stop at reciprocity; it carries over into the field of sympathy and sacrifice. It invests in a helpfulness that holds out no promise of dividend in kind. In its most enduring form it is wisely forebearing and judiciously generous, and while it would rather suffer than do wrong, it guards against an endurance which becomes injurious. Neighborliness has no hatchets buried with the handles sticking out.

Making Good Neighbors.-The good neighbor never hunts good neighbors, he makes them. He never leaves a neighborhood without carrying neighborliness with him. He makes neighbors of several types, but all good.

His Intellectual Neighbors. He finds material for intellectual neighbors, he makes them through an exchange of ideas, taking care that the bartering is not one-sided by having the questions all on one side and the information all on the other. He talks with and not to his neighbors in the making. In his friendly visits he does not make overdraughts upon his welcome account; he does not strain the confidence of his neighbor to the breaking point by confessing other people's sins. He makes of his neigh

bor an intellectual comrade, even though that neighbor cannot become his peer.

His Business Neighbors. He makes neighbors by minding his own business, keeping his credit giltedged, caring for the property held in common with his neighbors as he cares for his own. He would no more make the highway unsightly than he would litter his own walk. His anxiety for the return of that which he borrows far exceeds his eagerness to borrow. He helps with out humiliating; his favors are all

barbless.

His Social Neighbors. He makes neighbors whose neighborliness is chiefly social. They become his through the art of consistent entertainment. With such he never stoops except to lift. He does not rob his neighbors of sleep through the medium of a barking dog, nor does he steal his neighbor's garden truck by means of unpenned chickens. In the social sea, keeping his head above the waves, he becomes a center of safety. He is hail fellow well met, always on high ground. He might be consistently cartooned as bighearted, but never as big-headed. He makes a neighbor of the new-comer, by calling upon him and by extending cordial greetings at casual meetings, by inviting him into his home. He also invites his neighbor to affiliate with organizations with which he has membership, and he is especially solicitious of his neighbor in cases of trouble, such as sickness and death. His Religious Neighbors. Our good neighbor-maker gives evidence of spiritual sincerity, with no air of self-righteousness. He loves his God and worships Him in his own way. To him, as a Christian, the keeping of the second great law requires the

keeping of the first. He knows that to hoe in his garden, repair his fence, mow his lawn, or do any other avoidable week-day work, not only gives evidence of a disregard for Deity, but it is positively unneighborly in any Christian community. The good neighbor keeps the Sabbath day holy. If he invites his neighbor to attend. his church, he is not above accepting an invitation to attend his neighbor's church. He courts religious conversation, but avoids heated discussion of religious subjects. In friendly argument he emphasizes the beauties of his faith and leaves the defects of his neighbor's belief to be seen through silent comparison. Neither his neighbors nor his neighbor's children hear him use

with irreverence the name of God. Whatever his religion requires, he gives evidence of trying to do; whatever his religion forbids, from that he refrains. He keeps the commandment recorded in Matt. 5:16. His neighborliness is a source of joy and a factor of happiness, immediate and prospective, here and beyond.

Suggestions. Have someone read, sing, or recite the hymn, "A poor wayfaring man of grief." The reciting of "Abou Ben Adam" would also be appropriate.

day unneighborly in a Christian community?

7. What is religious aloofness, and how dces it affect neighborliness?

8. Discuss disturbance of the peace by dogs.

9. Have a four-minute talk or a fiveminute paper on the neglected Lewcomer.

In its widest sense, obedience means the yielding of one thing to another voluntarily, involuntarily, or nonvoluntarily. We voluntarily extend a cordial greeting to a friend, we involuntarily scowl at the approach of an enemy, we nonvoluntarily absorb heat. In any case we obey law. The universe is governed by law. As a whole it obeys the law of its existence and each part obeys the law of the whole. Law reigns everywhere and obedience is compliance with law.

Liberty, being one of the highest conditions of life, it is well to remember that the higher the law the greater the liberty, and that the only way to become a beneficiary of any law is to obey it, and that the more perfect the obedience, the greater the gift of the law. Obedience, then, is the acceptance of opportunity to be free and, therefore, to be happy. Willing or acquiescent obedience is doubly fruitful as a factor of happiness. It yields happiness in the act as well as in the results of the act. It is a condition of joy in the pursuit, and satisfaction in the possession. The direction of one's willing obedience determines the objects of his love; under the law, which we grow to love in the direction of our willing service and acquiescent obedience, is service for service sake as well as for the object of service.

To determine whom or what we will obey is to decide whom or what we shall love.

Obedience as a Source of Individ

ual Happiness.-Upward obedience is power, cooperation of the individual with something greater increases not only the freedom of the individual, but his power to act. In an act of obedience, therefore, one is greater than himself, he is all of himself plus the reinforcement that comes through his union with that which he obeys. As with agency or authority so with obedience, they each and both make us more than we possibly could be without them. Through obedience to law one has the benefit of the operations of the law; and through obedience to authority, one has the benefit of the intelligence and the experience behind the authority. To refuse obedience to authority is to lose an opportunity to invest in one's agency, intelligence. and ability with the agency, intelligence, and ability of a greater than ones' own ability or authority.

Every act of obedience to law and authority is a prophecy of success. It is nature's declaration of a fitness to survive, and fitness of survival is a high source of joy. An unerring prophecy of success is, to say the least, a factor of prospective happiness.

Obedience as a Source of Happiness to the Group.-Disobedience of a single member of the family brings distress upon the entire family. The return of the prodigal could not compensate for all the distress that his disobedience had caused. He not only squandered his share of the family substance, but he cut down.

the joy-income of the whole household. The prodigal was brought back to heaven's highway, not by divine coercion, but by the buffetings of Satan.

The group can be saved from itself only through the obedience of the individuals to the group rules. In democracies, if the highest form of liberty is to be enjoyed, the group, while in a reflective mood, when reason and judgment are in the ascendency, frame constitutions and enact laws that shall prevent or at least check the going to ruin at times when the passions temporarily rise to the ascendency; and these legislative provisions for obedience are to the existence and freedom and happiness of the group what the rudder is to the ship in fair weather, and what the anchor is in storm; and the member of the group who refuses obedience to these provisions for progress and safety, and seeks to nullify them, is like one who would break the rudder or cut the anchor cable of the ship on which he rides. A sense of safety is psychic salvation, and salvation is a synonym for happiness.

It is said that a good thing can be done in such a bad way that the method makes it bad, and the nullifying of an unwise law by anarchistic procedure is a case of the cure being worse than the disease; and the sorrow-product of the procedure is more than the joy-product of the results; and, therefore, it is fundamentally wrong. Nullification at best stabs patriotism to reach the end that should be sought only through revision or repeal.

In case of conflict, where the choice of necessity must be made, it were well always to remember the wisdom of him who said at the gates of Capernaum, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's." The history of

the Latter-day Saints furnishes a most striking example of the perpetuity of that policy.

If obedience leaves a household, unhappiness enters; if it flees a country, safety follows it.

Obedience and Religion.-It was the disobedience, and not the fruit, that caused man's spiritual death in Eden. No number of unofficial or unwilling baptisms could have resulted in man's spiritual rebirth. President Young is quoted as having said, "As well baptize a bag of sand as an unrepentant person.' There can be no such thing as coerced conversion. The one great call heavenward is, "Son, give me thine heart."

Before it was said of mankind, "They shall have joy," it was declared, "They shall be obedient." Pearl of Great Price, "Book of Abraham," chapter 4:31. The fundamental object of man's existence is joy, but obedience is the only roadway to that goal. Heaven without a love for God does not exist, and the declaration of the Redeemer on this point is, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." John 14:15; 15:10. Behind this declaration is the law of growth in the direction of service. We grow to love the objects of our willing service, and willing obedince is the highest form of service.

The privilege of mortal existence was based upon premortal obedience. Pearl of Great Price, "Book of Abraham," 3:24, 25, 26. It would seem that it is perfectly safe theologically to declare that no one can be saved in disobedience, but through obedience, both salvation and exaltation are made certain.

QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS

1. Show that obedience is the first law of heaven. Give reasons for answer.

2. Discuss this proposition: As the essence of crime is intention, so the efficacy