Questions and Answers

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. The Missing Revelations. Please answer the questions in the following letter written by an elder of the Reorganized church to a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. February 28, 1906. Dear : Since you were here, I wrote eider [of the Reorganized church] as I told you I would. Just received answer today. As we are going home Saturday morning, I do not suppose we will have the pleasure of seeing you again before we go. I will give you the information I wrote for, and I trust you will not destroy this until you secure the books herein referred to, and look the matter up for yourself. I feel sure these facts will stand your closest investigation. In the Liverpool edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, published for Orson Pratt by S. W. Richards, No. 15, Wilton Street, Liverpool, England, in the year 1854, there are one hundred and eleven sections, or chapters. There is in the publication a chapter on marriage limiting a man to one wife. The number of the chapter or section is 109. This section is left out of later editions and in its stead is the revelation on plural marriage. In the Salt Lake edition, published in the year 1898 by George Q. Cannon and Sons Co., there are one hundred and thirty-six sections, one of these being credited to Brigham Young, leaving 135 being credited to Joseph Smith. • The number of the revelations added to editions published later than 1876, as found in the 1898 edition of Salt Lake, are as follows: Nos. 2, 13, 77, 85, 87, 108, 109, 110, 111, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 120, 121, 122, 123, 125, 126, 130, 131, 132 and 136. None of the above revelations are published in the Liverpool edition, nor are ihey in any of the Lamoni editions. There are two revelations published in the

EDITOR'S TABLE. 567 Lamoni editions that are not found in any of the Utah editions, which are credited to Joseph Smith the Martyr; they are sections 22 and 36. These revelations are regarding inspired translation of the Scriptures, which manuscript did not fall into the hands of Brigham Young and his followers. Otherwise the Lamoni and Liverpool editions are the same. There is also published in the Lamoni editions the minutes of the general assembly of the Church in 1835, which I do not believe appear in the Utah editions . Now, dear brother, inasmuch as you have shown a kind and devoted interest in my spiritual welfare, I feel that these references and facts should be of interest to you. God has given us our reason and faculties to exercise them, not to blindly accept nor to blindly reject, but to examine all things and hold fast to that which is good. The holy word also teaches us that we must be able to give a reason for the hope that is within us. Unless you can give a reason acceptable to a logical brain for the testimony you bear, how can you dare in the face of God and man to stand up and declare you know it (your Church) to be of God? Are you right? Are you moved by the same deceptive power which caused Brigham Young and others to add the twenty-five revelations to suit their conditions, and say they were given through Joseph Smith? Now, , I feel deeply interested in you, and my earnest desire is that you may learn the truth. As I told you before, if you can prove one assertion made by the Reorganized church to be false, or show me wherein they are trying to smother any historical fact regarding the Church, or where they have taken from or added to any of the original manuscripts, I shall be through with them. But in my investigation, I have found that your Church has largely departed from the faith, introduced false doctrines, and I can easily see wherein comes the necessity of a reorganization. Your sincere well-wishing brother, ever trusting and praying that we may be led in the strait and narrow way. The foregoing communication is a fair sample of the chicanery so often resorted to by members of the "Reorganized" church, whenever they think such tricks may be indulged in by them successfully. It appears that the reorganite writer of this letter wishes to convey the idea that it was ''deceptive power which caused Brigham Young and others to add the twenty-five revelations [which appear in later editions of the Doctrine and Covenants] to suit their conditions, and say they were given through Joseph Smith." We are surprised at the stand he takes and the ignorance he manifests of the situation, since many of these revelations and commandments were published before the Prophet's death, and have been accepted—at least as having been given to the Prophet —by the officers of the ' 'Reorganized" church. President Brigham Young has been unjustly accused of many things; but this is the first time vv^e have seen credit given him for

568 IMPROVEMENT ERA. the authorship of these sections which set forth some of the grandest principles revealed in this dispensation. So foolish is the statement, and so out of harmony with the well-established facts that we shall give it but a passing notice. It is sufficient tO' say that among these twenty-five sections said-to have been "deceitfully added" by Brigham Young and others, "to suit their conditions," we have the following: The words spoken by the angel to Joseph Smith in his father's house, September 21, 1823 (Sec. 2); The words of John the Baptist in the ordination of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to the Aaronic Priesthood (Sec. 13); The key to John's Revelation (Sec. 77); Revelations concerning the Saints in Missouri, (Sections 85 and 118); The revelation on War, predicting the rebellion of South Carolina, (Sec. 87); The prayer given by revelation and offered at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, (Sec. 109); The visions of the Prophet and Oliver Cowdery, wherein the keys of the various dispensations were committed unto them, including those of the Salvation for the Dead, (Sec. 110); Revelation concerning Far West and the building of a temple there, (Sec. 115); The naming of Adam-Ondi-Ahman, (Sec. 116); Revelations on Tithing, (Sections 119 and 120), and Prayer and prophecies written by the Prophet in Liberty prison, (Sections 121, 122 and 123). Surely no sane person possessing a belief in the mission of Joseph Smith will say that these were prepared "by deceptive power by President Brigham Young and others to suit their conditions!" It is a mistake to suppose that all the revelations given to the Prophet were published before his death, or even in the later editions of the Doctrine and Covenants, for he received many revelations that never have appeared in print, and, without doubt, many which were never recorded at all. The two revelations referred to as being published in the Lamoni editions (Sections 22 and 36), and not appearing in the editions published by the Church, because we never had the manuscript, is an error. Both of these revelations were published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in their completeness long before the "Reorganized" Church came into existence. These sections, as published by the Reorganites, are but frag-

EDITORS TABLE. 569 ments taken from the Book of Moses, (See Pearl of Great Price, Book of Moses, chapters 1 and 7), the original manuscript of which never was in their possession but is on file in the archives of the Church, in Salt Lake City. The minutes of the General Assembly referred to, were published in the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, and in that edition only. The "Reorganized" Church has never published them, at any rate, we have never seen an edition of their Doctrine and Covenants with them in, and we have examined quite a number. The fact is that those minutes would destroy one of their pet arguments; viz., that Section cix on marriage was a revelation given through the Prophet Joseph Smith. That article is not a revelation and was never considered such by the Saints. It was read by W. W. Phelps, at a conference of the Church, held August 17, 1835, and ordered printed in the Doctrine and Covenants, ajter the revelations and commandments had been compiled by the committee, of whom the Prophet was the chairman, and had been accepted by the vote of the several quorums and the body of the Church. It is interesting to know, in this connection, that at the time of this conference, the Prophet and Frederick G. Williams were in Michigan, and did not return until August 23, —six days after the adoption of this article on marriage, hence they had no voice in that conference, but of necessity had to acquiesce in the actions of the Saints in the adoption of this article as a rule of faith, which it continued to be until the reception of the law recorded in the 132nd section of the Doctrine and Covenants. Most certainly President ' 'Brigham Young and others," had a far better right to eliminate this section than the "Reorganized" church had to take out the first 75 pages of the Doctrine and Covenants, known as the Lectures on Faith; and this they did in publishing their edition of 1905. If we had the least idea that the writer of the foregoing letter was sincere, we might place before him some evidence regarding false assertions made by the ' 'Reorganized" church, and show wherein they are trying to smother historical facts. If he will carefully read almost any issue of the official papers of that church, he may find plenty of instances of that kind for himself. How-

570 IMPROVEMENT ERA. ever, we will give him an example: On page 16, Vol. 2 of the History of the Church, published by the ''Reorganization," a partial account of the proceedings of January 21, 1836, in the Kirtland Temple, are given. When the compilers (Messrs. Joseph Smith and Heman C. Smith) came to that portion of the proceedings which refers to the "Twelve Apostles of the Lamb," thfy eliminated it. It is as follows: And I also beheld that all the children who die before they arrive at the years of accountability are saved in the celestial kingdom of heaven. I saw the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb who are now upon the earth, who hold the keys of this last ministry, fatigued, with their clothes tattered and feet swollen, with their eyes cast downward, and Jesus standing in their midst, and they did not behold Him. The Savior looked upon them and wept. I also beheld Elder M'Lellin in the South, standing upon a hill, surrounded by a vast multidude, preaching to them, and a lame man standing before him supported by his crutches; he threw them down at his word and leaped as a hart, by the mighty power of God. Also I saw Elder Brigham Young standing in a strange land, in the far south and west, in a desert place, upon a rock in the midst of about a dozen men of color, who appeared hostile. He was preaching to them in their own tongue, and the angel of God standing above his head, with a drawn sword in his hand, protecting him, but he did not see it. And I finally saw the Twelve in the celestial kingdom of God. Is not the reason why they discarded this obvious?