Suffering as the Highest Good

One thing that continually impresses me is the ability of the early Latter-day Saints to reinterpret their persecutions as positive events in their lives. Although they also complained a lot concerning the the treatment they received at the hands of the Missourians and Illinoisans, early Mormons were also adept in reversing their losses and turning them into triumphs. For Parley P. Pratt and other Latter-day Saints, being called to suffer and even die for the truth was

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Reflections. In Prison, April, 1839.

We often hear about Joseph Smith’s sojourn in a Missouri prison during the winter of 1838-1839, but Parley P. Pratt also spent about eight months in a Missouri jail, an experience that receives little attention. Those eight months were, in a word, prolific, as Pratt produced not only a major full-length treatise describing the Mormon persecutions in Missouri, but also an important theological essay. He also wrote several surviving letters and poems. Some of the poems are better

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The Feast-day of the Lord to Joseph and Hyrum Smith, For Being Martyred for the Truth

It has recently been suggested that we should commemorate the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, rather than his birthday. I wonder how contemporary Latter-day Saints would respond to having an official holiday set aside to remember the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. In speaking to some of my friends and family about the idea, I’ve seen some resistance, in part I think to the contemporary fear of being perceived by outsiders as worshipping Joseph Smith. Parley P. Pratt, in his “One Hundred Years Hence. 1945.”, speculated that in the Millennium we will hold feast days to h

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From the Archives: I was born in Sharon, Vermont

This is cross-posted at Times and Seasons. 

Yesterday was Joseph Smith’s birthday.  I wonder sometimes how important it is to us in the 21st century that he was born in Vermont, given that the narratives we use to discuss Joseph usually skip his birthplace altogether and fast forward to New York. In the 1840s, however, as the Saints struggled to win support in their redress efforts against Missouri, casting Joseph as a son of Vermont was a crucial component to the image of the Prophet. The following is Joseph’s appeal to the Green Mountain Boys, taken from HC 6:88-93. The appeal was published initially as an extra in a December 1843 Extra for the Times and Seasons (hat tip, MAM) and in 1844 in the Voice of Truth (BYU apparently just has the 1845 printing; hat tip, smb).

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“Plurality of Wives was an Incident, Never an Essential”: James E. Talmage on Polygamy

Historians can learn a lot about a people by examining the stories that they tell about themselves to others. When people wish to communicate something about themselves, they will usually pick some elements from their past to share. These narratives are highly selective, not only in the elements that are chosen but also in the language used to describe them. Present concerns normally shape what people share about their past, leading to the axiom that memory usually has more to do with the present than with the past.

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From the Archives: “We Have a Company of Danites in these Times”

The summer and fall of 1838 were times of increasing tensions both within and without the Church. Internal dissent originating in the Kirtland banking crisis of late 1837 bled into 1838, and Missourian opposition to the increasing Mormon population in northern Missouri was rising to a boiling point. During the ensuing months, these tensions led to the outbreak of violence between Mormons and non-Mormons, a conflict in which neither side was guiltless, and one that resulted in the expulsion of the Latter-day Saints from Missouri in winter 1838-1839. Any discussion of Mormon vigilantism during this period must be framed within the context of what historian William G. Hartley [following Juanita Brooks] has called war hysteria.[1]

In June 1838 Mormon vigilantes formed an extralegal organization that came to be known as the Danites, apparently with the full knowledge and support of Church leaders Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon. Scholars have suggested that the

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From the Archives: “The Impropriety of the Organization of Bands or Companies”

While in Liberty Jail, Joseph had a lot of time to meditate upon his latest year’s experiences. The Church had been forced from Ohio, some of his closest friends had turned on him, and now his followers were being expelled from the state of Missouri. After spending four months in prison, he reflects on many of these topics in a letter dictated to the rest of the church. Full of emotion, struggle, and comfort, this letter has become famous among LDS circles, and parts of it were extracted to form three revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants. However, while going over it again recently, a portion which was not canonized caught my attention

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From the Archives: Joseph Smith or the Sword!?

Justin’s recent post at Mormon Wasp describes the latest Jack Chick anti-Mormon comic book, The Enchanter. Chick’s comic contains a picture of Joseph Smith, dressed in full Nauvoo Legion attire, saying: “If the people let us alone, we will preach the gospel in peace. But if they come on us to molest us, we will establish our religion with the sword. We will trample down our enemies and make it one gore of blood…from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. I will be to this generation a 2nd Muhammad, whose motto in treating for peace was ?the Al-Qur’an or the sword.’ So sha

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From the Archives: The Times and Seasons on Suffering, Donations, and Salvation

Early Latter-day Saints saw the world through martyrological lenses. To suffer persecution was the ultimate sign of chosenness and the Saints themselves used the memory their persecutions to draw distinct boundaries between themselves and their neighbors that had not suffered. Given this persecution discourse, many Nauvoo Saints that had not been in Missouri in 1838 yearne

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From the Archives: A Presbyterian Minister on the Mormon Belief in Pre-Existence, 1840

Mormon forays into the Delaware Valley in the late 1830s yielded scores of converts, prompting Protestant ministers, in particular Presbyterian Henry Perkins, to respond against the growing Mormon presence. In the following excerpt from a May 1840 speech, Perkins denounces the Mormon belief in pre-existence. As Charles R. Harrell has shown, seminal references to pre-existence first appeared in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants, and Mormon periodicals began printing references to pre-existence as early as 1835.[1] This statement by Perkins is the first known public anti-Mormon denunciation of the doctrine. 

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