A “Powerful” Chance Encounter with William George Jordan

The Power of Truth was written by William George Jordan and first published in 1902. My father encouraged me to read it for years and when I finally did I wondered why I had not read it earlier.  It affirms what most of us believe but don’t articulate. It offers insights into human nature that provides comfort and can inspire us to become the kind of people God would have us be. It is on my must read list.  This is one of the few books that you can turn to any page, put your finger anywhere on the page and find a quotable quote in the paragraph that your finger is on.

The Power of Truth was Mr. Jordan’s third book. The Kingship of Self-Control (1898) and The Majesty of Calmness preceded it (1900).  In typical Jordan style the name of the book is also the title of the first chapter. Each chapter is a stand-alone sermon on a principle or concept related in some fashion to “Truth”.

In his last chapter, “The Way of the Reformer”,  I believe Mr. Jordan reveals a little of how he views himself. These three paragraphs especially read as if he is telling us about himself:

Sweet indeed is human sympathy, the warm hand clasp of confidence and love brings a rich inflow of new strength to him who is struggling, and the knowledge that someone dear to us sees with love and comradeship our future through our eyes, is a wondrous draught of new life. If we have this, perhaps the loyalty of two or three, what the world says or thinks about us should count for little. But if this be denied us, then must we bravely walk our weary way alone, toward the sunrise that must come.

The little world around us that does not understand us, does not appreciate our ambition or sympathize with our efforts that seem to it futile, is not intentionally cruel, calloused, bitter, blind, or heartless. It is merely that busied with its own pursuits, problems and pleasures, it does not fully realize, does not see as we do.

The world does not see our ideal as we see it, does not feel the glow of inspiration that makes our blood tingle, our eye brighten, and our soul seem flooded with a wondrous light. It sees naught but the rough block of marble before us and the great mass of chips and fragments of seemingly fruitless effort at our feet, but it does not see the angel of achievement slowly emerging from its stone prison, from nothingness into being, under the tireless strokes of our chisel. It hears no faint rustle of wings that seem already real to us or the glory of the music of triumph already ringing in our ears.

Certainly Mr. Jordan was a reformer. His first copyrighted work dealt with improving education, his next three, improving individuals, then he moved to improving government, back to individuals, then marriage, political institutions, individuals and education once again. He was always trying to improve the world around him. Even in his personal life, I note from the 1900, 1910, and 1920 census records that he provided care for his family members. In 1900 and 1910; his mother Mary Jordan and an older sister Barbara Jordan lived with him. In 1920, after his mother had passed away, his older sister Margaret Jordan and a younger married sister Mary Jordan Cox along with her 18 year old daughter Dorothy May Cox were living with him. Mary and her husband had gone through bankruptcy due to the real estate market collapse. As there was not room for her husband and son in the Jordan residence Mary’s husband and son ended up boarding in a nearby home. Clearly, supporting family was a part of his makeup.

Perhaps the resistance he received for his educational views, family circumstances and work related struggles together with his faith led him to conclude “The Way of the Reformer” with this thought:

And when it is all over and the victory is yours, and the smoke clears away and the smell of the powder is dissipated, and you bury the friendships that died because they could not stand the strain, and you nurse back the wounded and faint hearted who loyally stood by you, even when doubting, then the hard years of fighting will seem but a dream. You will stand brave, heartened, strengthened by the struggle, recreated to a new, better and stronger life by a noble battle, nobly waged, in a noble cause. And the price will then seem to you—nothing.

Below is a favorite quote from each chapter:

I. The Power of Truth
Truth can stand alone, for it needs no chaperone or escort. Lies are cowardly, fearsome things that must travel in battalions. They are like a lot of drunken men, one vainly seeking to support another.

II. The Courage to Face Ingratitude
Man should not be an automatic gas-machine, cleverly contrived to release a given quantity of illumination under the stimulus of a nickel. He should be like the great sun,itself which ever radiates light, warmth, life and power, because it cannot help doing so, because these qualities fill the heart of the sun, and for it to have them means that it must give them constantly.

III. People Who Live in Air Castles
The man who permits regret for past misdeeds, or sorrow for lost opportunities to keep him from recreating a proud future from the new days committed to his care, is losing much of the glory of living.

IV. Swords and Scabbards
Reputation is what the world thinks a man is; character is what he really is … Reputation is the shell a man discards when he leaves life for immortality. His character he takes with him.

V. The Conquest of the Preventable
It is ever the little things that make up the sum of human misery. All the wild animals of the world combined do but trifling damage, when compared with the ravages of insect pests. The crimes of humanity, the sins that make us start back affrighted, do not cause as much sorrow and unhappiness in life as the multitude of little sins, of omission and commission that the individual, and millions like him, must meet every day. They are not the evil deeds that the law can reach or punish, they are but the infinity of petty wrongs for which man can never be tried until he stands with bowed head before the bar of justice of his own conscience.

VI. The Companionship of Tolerance
Tolerance makes the individual regard truth as higher than personal opinion; it teaches him to live with the windows of his life open towards the east to catch the first rays of the sunlight of truth no matter from whom it comes, and to realize that the faith that he so harshly condemns may have the truth he desires if he would only look into it and test it before he repudiates it so cavalierly.

VII. The Things that Come too Late
It takes over thirty years for the light of some of the stars to reach the earth, some a hundred, some a thousand years. Those stars do not become visible till their light reaches and reacts on human vision. It takes an almost equal time for the light of some of the world's great geniuses to meet real, seeing eyes. Then we see these men as the brilliant stars in the world's gallery of immortal great ones. This is why contemporary reputation rarely indicates lasting fame. We are constantly mistaking fireflies of cleverness for stars of genius.

VIII. The Way of the Reformer
… it is the fight that is made when all seems lost that really counts and wrests victory from the hand of seeming defeat.

It is difficult to pick favorite quotes because each time I read it I’m in a different place in life and I’m touched by different sections. I guess that is a measure of a good book, one that no matter how many times you read it you can gain new insights with each reading.

The Power of Truth was also published in England in 1903 by Hutchinson & Co under the name Great Truths. Heber J. Grant, who later become the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, encountered Great Truths while in serving in England as a mission president. The following story is told in a BYU Studies article on Heber J. Grant (BYU Studies Vol 43):

While in England, Grant encountered another book that had great influence on him, not only because of its contents but also for the practice it began. Pausing one day in the editorial office of the Millennial Star [an LDS Magazine which served British members], he casually thumbed through a slender volume, The Power of Truth by William George Jordan, a former editor of the Saturday Evening Post. Grant found himself captured by the author's simple phrases and practical lessons. He read the volume seven times and began to liberally salt his sermons with its messages. "I know of no book of the same size, that has made a more profound impression upon my mind," he wrote enthusiastically to Jordan, "and whose teachings I consider of greater value."

Grant decided the book deserved wide circulation. Inquiring of the publishers, he learned that of the original five thousand copies printed, only a few hundred had been sold. The rest of the copies were scheduled for the incinerator. Grant immediately purchased these … and began to mark and inscribe copies for friends. Before leaving Europe he ordered another one thousand copies printed.

Thus began one of Grant's characteristic hobbies: buying hundreds and sometimes thousands of copies of books for distribution to friends [in a speech at the dedication of of the Grant Library at BYU in 1925 President Grant estimated that he had given away roughly 100,000 books – see “President Grant the Patron of Drama, Literature, Art and Music”, Improvement Era, Jan 1936].

Between June of 1908 and September of 1913 the following books by William George Jordan were published in the Improvement Era (an official magazine of the LDS church from 1897 to 1970)  in serial form: The Kingship of Self-Control, The Majesty of Calmness, The Crown of Individuality, Little Problems of Married Life. Thus for over 5 years LDS Church members were exposed to William George Jordan on nearly a monthly basis. In 1934 The Power of Truth was published in the Improvement Era (one chapter per month) and in 1935 it was published in hardback by Deseret Book Company. I suspect few church members have had more words put in print by church periodicals than Mr. Jordan, who was not a member of the church.

Heber J. Grant was sustained as the President of the Church on Nov 23rd 1918 and on that same day spoke at the funeral services of the former president, Joseph F. Smith.  He paid tribute to Joseph F. Smith using quotes from The Power of Truth. It could thus be said that in his first speech as the leader of the LDS faith The Power of Truth played a role.

LDS Church leaders have used quotes from Mr. Jordan in talks, articles and books since 1908. Starting with Heber J. Grant in 1908 through to M. Russell Ballard in 2009. The list of LDS leaders who have used quotes from Mr. Jordan’s books include Marvin J. Ashton, M. Russell Ballard, J. Richard Clarke, Heber J. Grant, Harold B. Lee, David O. McKay, Thomas S. Monson, LeGrand Richards … .

Thus a “chance” encounter with a small book in England not only had a remarkable effect on one man but, through Heber J. Grant the author was introduced to multiple generations of LDS church members.

You can view/download The Power of Truth using the following links: HTML, PDF.  A complete list of books and pamphlets by WJG can be found in my post “Books by William George Jordan.”