---
title: Times and Seasons
description: Issues of 1839 to 1840.
authors:
  - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
editors:
  - Ebenezer Robinson
  - Don Carlos Smith
  - Smith, Joseph, Jr.
  - Taylor, John
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - newspaper
  - times-and-seasons
  - nauvoo
  - nineteenth-century
periodical: Times and Seasons
volume: 1
number: 10
published: 1840-08
publisher: E. Robinson and D. C. Smith; later John Taylor
publisher_place: Commerce and Nauvoo, Illinois
language: en
type: article
reference: "“The Word of Wisdom by Miss Eliza K. Snow,” *Times and Seasons* 1, no. 10 (August 1840): 160."
printed_title: THE WORD OF WISDOM BY MISS ELIZA K. SNOW.
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1840-08_1_10
  transcription: Text from the Centerplace.org transcription (https://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v1n10.htm), with its page breaks; this Internet Archive scan is the reference copy (its OCR was used only as a witness for OCR repair)
  identifier: per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1840-08_1_10
start_page: 160
end_page: 160
curator_note: A Mormon newspaper published by the church in Nauvoo; included for historical study. Inclusion does not imply endorsement.
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1840 (Nauvoo, Illinois); published before 1931, so public domain in the United States
  source: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1840-08_1_10
  publication_year: 1840
---

# The Word of Wisdom by Miss Eliza K. Snow

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"For to one is given by the spirit, the word of wisdom ." 1 st. Cor. 12:8.

The Lord imparted from above It is a straight and narrow way,

The word of wisdom for our blessing? That leads to the Celestial City:

But shall it unto many prove That high taught saints should go astray,

A gift that is not worth possessing? Thro' gentile customs, is a pitty [pity].

Have we not been divinely taught, O: that the saints would all regard

To heed its voice and highly prize it? Each gracious word that God has given

Then who shall once indulge the thought And prize the favor of the Lord

It can be better to dispise [despise] it? Above all things beneath the heaven.

Has self denial grown a task?

Or has that word been vainly spoken,

Or why, I fain would humbly ask,

Why is that word, so often broken.