I read lots of Reformation sermons for my forthcoming book, but I had no way to use this extract from Heber C. Kimball’s 9 November 1856 address. I found it so wonderfully strange that I felt compelled to share it. I quote here the very end of the sermon.

I will tell you a dream that brother Joseph Fielding had in England, about the time that brother Brigham and I went back on our second visit, for it will apply to many in this congregation. Brother Fielding dreamed that he had a sharp sickle, and that he hung it up on a bush, but when he returned and took down his sickle, he found the edge all taken off from it. This will apply to many others. You remember it, do you not, brother Joseph?–and is it correct? It is, and his sickle has not cut from that time to the present, and the reason is he has had a woman straddle his neck from that day to this. Amen.

Discuss.