Just think! The only reason the world knows anything about them is because having met the Savior, they made Him their guide in life. If they hadn't, nobody now would know that such men had ever lived. They would have lived and died and been forgotten just as thousands of other men in their day lived and died and nobody knows or cares anything about them; just as thousands and thousands are living today, wasting their time and energy in useless living, choosing the wrong kind of men for their ideals, turning their footsteps into the road of Pleasure and Indulgence instead of the road of Service. Soon they will reach the end of their journey in life, and nobody can say that the world is any better for their having lived in it. At the close of each day such men leave their pathway as barren as they found it--they plant no trees to give shade to others, nor rosebushes to make the world sweeter and brighter to those who follow--no kind deeds, no noble service--just a barren, unfruitful, desert-like pathway, strewn, perhaps, with thorns and thistles. Not so with the disciples who chose Jesus for their Guide. Their lives are like gardens of roses from which the world may pluck beautiful flowers forever. LESSON 2 Early Life and Surroundings "It is with youth as with plants, from the first fruits they bear we learn what may be expected in future." [Sidenote: The "Dead Sea" of America.] Flowing north from Utah Lake through part of the Great Basin, and emptying into the Great Salt Lake, the Dead Sea of America, is the river Jordan. Utah Lake is fresh water and abounds in fish; Salt Lake, as its name suggests, is so briny that no fish can live in its waters. To President Brigham Young and the worthy band of Pioneers, the Salt Lake Valley with the "Dead Sea" reflecting the glorious rays of a July sun, was indeed a "promised land." [Sidenote: The "Dead Sea" of the Holy Land.] Away across the Atlantic Ocean, stretching along the east shore of the Mediterranean Sea is another salt sea, another river Jordan, and another fresh water lake, and the river flows through the "Promised Land," or the Land of Canaan. However, if you will refer to a map of that country, you will see that the relative position of this lake, river and sea are just opposite in direction from these in Utah. In the Holy Land the fresh water lake is in the north, and the Jordan river flows south into the Dead Sea. The land that contains these three important marks in history has several names. As given above, it is called The Holy Land; also The Land of Canaan; also the Land of the Hebrews, or the Land of Israel, because Jacob's children once settled there; also the Land of Judah, after one of Jacob's sons; also Palestine, probably after the Philistines, who lived, as you know, in the days of the shepherd boy David. [Sidenote: Size of Cannan.]