6 THE ACORN is self-evident and not possible of contradiction. It is equally important that we should know what error is. I will venture another definition equally as simple. Error is what is NOT so. I say this is a book what is simply so. If someone says, it is not a book, they say what is simply not so. Aesop makes a fly on the axle of a farmer's wagon being driven along a country road in summer boast, "What a great dust I am making." Evidently not so. Where can truth be found? Everywhere. In fact, truth is all there is. What, "truth is all there is!" Yes. Let us prove it. It is simply an elementary problem in arithmetic. What is truth? What is so. Mark that 1. What is error? What is not so. That is nothing. Mark that zero. Deduct zero from one, and you have one left, that is all there is, i. e., truth. Truth is simple, always easy to prove because it is what is so, therefore it exists, and what exists can be found. Error or falsity is always difficult, nay impossible of proof, because it is trying to prove what is not, therefore what does not exist, hence impossible to find. You have all read Aesop's fable of the ass, having put on a lion' skin, roamed around in the forest, and amused himself by frightening all the foolish animals he met with in his wanderings. At last, meeting a fox, he tried to frighten him also, but the fox no sooner heard the sound of his voice, than he exclaimed: "I might possibly have been frightened myself if I had not heard you bray?" Truth's simplicity is humorously il- lustrated in a story told on himself by Mr. Russell Herman Conwell. He went to New Hampshire to lecture, and to one of his relatives, a professor at Harvard, he said he would never go to New Hampshire again because he was so cold all the time he was there and shivered so that his teeth shook. The professor asked him why he shivered. He answered because it was cold. The professor retorted that that was not the reason. Then Conwell explained that he shook and shivered because he had not clothes enough on his bed. The professor again told him that was not the reason. "Well," professor," said Conwell, "you are a scientific man, I would like to have an expert, scientific opinion as to why I shivered." The professor, in a facetious way said: "Young man,you shivered because you did not know better! Did you not have in your pocket a two-cent paper?" Oh, yes, I had a New York Herald and a New York Journal." "That is it." said the professor, "You had them in your pocket, and if you had spread one newspaper over your sheet when you went to bed, you would have been as warm as you lay there as the richest man in America under all his silk coverlets. But you shivered because you did not know enough to put a two-cent newspaper on your bed and you had it in your pocket." CONWELL, you see, DID NOT KNOW THE TRUTH. It is the function of the spirit, according to the words of our Master, than whom there is no greater authority, to lead us into ALL truth. Yes, but what's that got to do with the story? Simply this: that truth is all there is, and the spirit will lead us into all there is worthy to be found, if we give it a chance and go THE ACORN 7 about it in the right way. Why the very text says so. "All" means the "whole absolutely." Nothing less. What, will the spirit lead me into learning my lessons! Has it got to do with literature, arithmetic, history? Yes! And more, too. It has to do with everything. You say you thought it had to do only with religious truth! It has to do with religious truth, but it has to do with everything else besides. It will lead you to find the truth, the actuality of the most subtle subjects as well as the most simple. That's all very well, you say, but I am not capable of these things. Do you think that Jesus would say the Spirit would lead you into all truth if you had not the capacity for it? Christ's teachings plainly proves that there is nothing but what we can learn, every one of us. For your encouragement, then, and as a vital truth, know ye that every one of us has the capacity to accomplish all things. There is nothing capable of accomplishment but what we can accomplish it. Don't any more say to the teacher, "I can't do it." Christ says you can. The Gospel, then, also teaches thoroughness, for there are no so-called half-truths. A thing is either entirely and absolutely true or it is not true at all. It is either so or it is not so. A line is not a straight line if it deviates so much as a hair from the perpendicular. There is no such thing as a white lie. They are all black. A lie is never necessary to the brave: it is the resort of cowards. The Gospel teaches thoroughness because it tells you that you are capable of learning all truth. If you fail to accomplish your lessons it is not because you have not got the capacity, but because you have not got thoroughness. You are either too lazy or too careless. No excuses go. God has said it. Our late lamented President John Taylor urged this principle in his maxim: "If a thing is well done, no one will ask how long it took to do it, but who did it." The late Lord Brougham was an Englishman of the last century, a man of letters, of science, advocate, orator, statesman, and Lord High Chancellor. He was once asked what he would do if he were a bootblack. He replied, "I would be the best bootblack in London." It will be seen that the Gospel, the power of truth, the actuality, the what is so, is the very essence of practicality. It teaches us not only to watch, fast, pray, sing, attend church, and the like, but it teaches us to act, to be doing things, to come down from the clouds to the facts. Theories are good, as they are based on reason, but we must have men to apply them; and when we thus show our faith by our ACTS, instead of our WORDS, it will not be necessary to be continually quoting from the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and other records, of the great feats of those who have lived in past ages, but we shall use our own examples of the principles we teach. If you should say to the athlete, "show me your muscle" and he should show you his Indian clubs, you would stare and say, "I don't want to see your Indian clubs; what I want to see is the effect of them." Get the Reality of things not their appearance. Get at the inside of things not the outside. Get the sound materials to wear rather than the fashions. Get the conscience of things not opinions. The Gospel plan is the only plan