Revelations published in The Evening and the Morning Star (, MO), vol. 1, nos. 1–10 and 12, and vol. 2, no. 13; edited by . The copy used for this transcription is currently part of a bound volume held at CHL; includes marginalia, archival notations, stamps, and bookplates.
The initial issues of The Evening and the Morning Star present revelations prominently on the first or second page of the newspaper. Beginning with the November 1832 issue, however, revelations were placed near the end of each issue. Each issue comprises four leaves (eight pages) that measure 12½ × 9⅞ inches (32 × 25 cm). Each page is set in two columns.
The volume used for this transcription was donated to the Salt Lake Temple by Lycurgus A. Wilson on 8 September 1894, according to a bookplate on the inside front cover of the volume. It was transferred to the library of the Church Historian’s Office sometime before 1923.
“Library Record for the Listing or Cataloguing of Books.” Historian’s Office, Library Accession Records, ca. 1890–ca. 1930. CHL. CR 100 429.
Historical Introduction
Soon after his into the church in 1831, was instructed by revelation to relocate to , Missouri, “and be established as a printer unto the church.” , who had been previously appointed to work on church publications, was directed to assist him. In early 1832, Phelps and his associates in Independence began work on the church’s first newspaper, The Evening and the Morning Star. Because of the difficulty of getting paper and other supplies to Independence, however, months passed before the first issue of the newspaper was printed in June 1832.
The newspaper’s prospectus announced that it would, in part, “be devoted to the revelations of God as made known to his servants by the , at sundry times since the creation of man, but more especially in these last days.” Though a small number of JS’s revelations appeared first in non-Mormon newspapers elsewhere, the Star was the first official periodical of the church to print them. As the church’s only periodical at the time, the Star also published counsel to church members, local and world news, editorials, hymns, and letters from missionaries. The Star regularly published general announcements to missionaries serving throughout the country and letters from church members in other states, evidencing that its circulation reached well beyond .
The press owned by , which was operated under the direction of the , was the only press in and indeed the only press for roughly one hundred miles. Reading material was scarce on the frontier, and it is likely that the town’s non-Mormon residents read the Star in addition to the Upper Missouri Advertiser, the secular paper published on the same press. In July 1833, when religious and political tensions between the Mormons and their neighbors had already created a tinderbox environment, an article titled “Free People of Color” appeared in The Evening and the Morning Star, quoting from statutes respecting the immigration of free persons of African descent. Many Missourians, largely sympathetic to the practice of slavery, interpreted the article as an attempt to invite free black people to settle in Missouri and were outraged. Four days after the editors of The Evening and the Morning Star printed a broadside extra in an attempt to calm the situation by clarifying the message of the offending article, a and most of the sheets of the still-unfinished Book of Commandments.
The destruction of the caused a six-month hiatus in the publication of the Star. In September 1833, was established in , Ohio, for the purpose of printing church materials, and was sent to to purchase a printing press and type. Upon his return, Cowdery resumed printing the Star in Kirtland from January until September 1834. Beginning in October 1834, the Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate succeeded the Star as the official church periodical.
Over the course of the Star’s fourteen-month run in , the paper printed nineteen full and seven partial revelation texts. Only two issues of the Missouri newspaper did not contain featured revelations: the April 1833 issue and the July 1833 issue, which was the final issue printed in Missouri. As in the Book of Commandments and the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants (1835), little, if any, introduction or commentary accompanied the featured revelations. In addition to publishing the revelations as stand-alone pieces, The Evening and the Morning Star often published articles that quoted from the revelations—both from those printed as featured documents in the paper and from those that had not been published therein. Well before the Book of Commandments was expected to be completed, the editors of the Star advised readers to “search the revelations which we publish,” an admonition that presumed that the Latter-day Saints had access to earlier issues. In fact, for Mormons in , as well as those scattered around the country, the Star became the most accessible source for JS’s revelatory texts.
The revelations published in The Evening and the Morning Star appear to have been selected for their importance. Many of the published revelations addressed topics relating to church government, such as the roles of specific church officers, the laws and commandments to be kept by church members, and the proper administration of the of the Lord’s Supper. Other published revelations announced newly received theological principles or looked forward to the second coming of Christ. Revelations that were given to specific individuals providing counsel or were not published. After the Star moved to , no revelations were included in the ten issues of the newspaper published there.
The table that follows lists each of the revelatory items printed in the Star and its reprint, along with its bibliographic information. See Revelations Printed in The Evening and the Morning Star for a side-by-side comparison of the revelations printed in the Star and its reprint.
Key to column titles
Vol:Issue:
Volume and issue number
Star Print Date:
Month in which the item was printed in The Evening and the Morning Star
Star Pages:
Pages on which the item was printed in The Evening and the Morning Star
Reprint Print Date:
Month in which the item was printed in Evening and Morning Star
Reprint Pages:
Pages on which the item was printed in Evening and Morning Star
Date:
Date of item, followed by section number in Doctrine and Covenants, 1981 edition, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter Day Saints: Carefully Selected from the Revelations of God. Compiled by Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, and Frederick G. Williams. Kirtland, OH: F. G. Williams, 1835. Also available in Robin Scott Jensen, Richard E. Turley Jr., Riley M. Lorimer, eds., Revelations and Translations, Volume 2: Published Revelations. Vol. 2 of the Revelations and Translations series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2011).
William W. Phelps, The Evening and the Morning Star Prospectus, Evening and Morning Star, June 1832 (Jan. 1835), 1–2; Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, 1:32.
Evening and Morning Star. Edited reprint of The Evening and the Morning Star. Kirtland, OH. Jan. 1835–Oct. 1836.
Crawley, Peter. A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. 3 vols. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997–2012.
See, for example, Articles and Covenants, ca. Apr. 1830, and Revelations, 16 Apr. 1830 and ca. Aug. 1830, in “The Mormon Creed,” Painesville Telegraph, 19 Apr. 1831, [4] [D&C 20, 22, and 27:1–5, 14–15, 18]; Revelation, 7 Dec. 1830, in “Miscellaneous,” Painesville Telegraph, 17 Jan. 1832, [1] [D&C 35]; Revelation, 9 Feb. 1831, in “Secret Bye Laws of the Mormonites,” Painesville Telegraph, 13 Sept. 1831, [1] [D&C 42:1–69]; and Revelation, Sept. 1830–B, in Ezra Booth, “Mormonism—Nos. VIII–IX,” Ohio Star, 8 Dec. 1831, [1] [D&C 28].
See, for example, Notice, The Evening and the Morning Star, Aug. 1832, [7]; “Letters,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Nov. 1832, [4]; “Extract” and “Letters,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Jan. 1833, [7]; and “Extracts of Letters from the Elders Abroad,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Feb. 1833, [5]–[6]. JS, in a November 1832 letter to Phelps, added ten new subscribers to the Star, nine from Guyandotte, Virginia (now West Virginia), and one from Wooster Township, Ohio. (JS, Kirtland, OH, to William W. Phelps, [Independence, MO], 27 Nov. 1832, in JS Letterbook 1, pp. 1–4.)
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
JS Letterbook 1 / Smith, Joseph. “Letter Book A,” 1832–1835. Joseph Smith Collection. CHL. MS 155, box 2, fd. 1.
The only known surviving copy of the Upper Missouri Advertiser—no. 3, dated 11 July 1832—is located at the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA.
“Free People of Color,” The Evening and the Morning Star, July 1833, 109; “To His Excellency, Daniel Dunklin,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Dec. 1833, 114–115.
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
See, for example, Articles and Covenants, ca. Apr. 1830, in “The Articles and Covenants of the Church of Christ,” The Evening and the Morning Star, June 1832, [1], and June 1833, 97–98 [D&C 20]; Revelation, 1 Nov. 1831–A, in “A Revelation, Given November 1831,” The Evening and the Morning Star,Oct. 1832, [3] [D&C 68]; and Revelation, 4 Dec. 1831, in “A Revelation Given December 4, 1831,” The Evening and the Morning Star,Dec. 1832, [5]–[6] [D&C 72].
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
See, for example, Revelation, 9 and 23 Feb. 1831, in “Extract from the Laws for the Government of the Church of Christ” and “Items of Law for the Government of the Church of Christ,” The Evening and the Morning Star,July 1832, [1], and Oct. 1832, [2] [D&C 42:11–93].
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
See, for example, excerpt of Revelation, ca. 7 Mar. 1831, in “A Prophecy Given to the Church of Christ, March 7, 1831,” The Evening and the Morning Star,June 1832, [2] [D&C 45:1–67, 71].
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
Revelations addressed to individuals were officially restricted “to the parties concerned” until they could be published in the Book of Commandments. (Minute Book 2, 30 Apr. 1832.)
Minute Book 2 / “The Conference Minutes and Record Book of Christ’s Church of Latter Day Saints,” 1838, 1842, 1844. CHL. Also available at josephsmithpapers.org.
this thing, and this is a new and an everlasting : even that which was from the beginning. Wherefore, although a man should be an hundred times, it availeth him nothing, for ye cannot enter in at the straight gate by the law of Moses; neither by your dead works; for it is because of your dead works, that I have caused this last Covenant, and this Church to be built up unto me; even as in days of old. Wherefore, enter ye in at the gate as I have , and seek not to counsel your God. Amen.
HEARKEN, O ye people of my church to whom the Kingdom has been given: Hearken ye and give ear to him who laid the foundation of the earth; who made the Heavens and all the host thereof, and by whom all things were made which live and move and have a being. And again I say, hearken unto my voice, lest death shall overtake you: in an hour when ye think not the summer shall be past, and the harvest ended, and your souls not saved. Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your case before him; saying Father behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified; wherefore Father spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life.
Hearken O ye people of my church, and ye listen together, and hear my voice while it is called to-day and harden not your hearts; for verily I say unto you that I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the light and the life of the world, a light that shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not; I came unto my own and my own received me not; but unto as many as received me gave I power to do many miracles, and to become the sons of God, and even unto them that believed on my name gave I power to obtain eternal life. And even so I have sent mine into the world, to be a light to the world, and to be a standard for my people and for the to seek to it; and to be a messenger before my face to prepare the way before me. Wherefore come ye unto it, and with him that cometh I will reason as with men in days of old, and I will show unto you my strong reasoning; wherefore hearken ye together and let me show it unto you, even my wisdom, the wisdom of him whom ye say is the God of Enoch, and his brethren, who were seperated from the earth, and were reserved unto myself, a city reserved until a day of righteousness shall come, a day which was sought for by all holy men, and they found it not because of wickedness and abominations, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth; but obtained a promise that they should find it, and see it in their flesh. Wherefore hearken and I will reason with you, and I will speak unto you and prophesy as unto men in days of old, and I will show it plainly as I showed it unto my , as I stood before them in the flesh and spake unto them saying: As ye have asked of me concerning the signs of my coming, in the day when I shall come in my glory, in the clouds of Heaven, to fulfil the promises that I have made unto your fathers; for as ye have looked upon the long absence of your bodies to be a bondage, I will show unto you how the day of redemption shall come, and also the restoration of the scattered Israel.
And now ye behold this temple which is in Jerusalem, which ye call the house of God, and your enemies say that this house shall never fall. But verily I say unto you, that desolation shall come upon this generation as a thief in the night, and this people shall be destroyed and scattered among all nations, and this temple which ye now see, shall be thrown down that there shall not be left one stone upon another. And it shall come to pass, that this generation of Jews shall not pass away, until every desolation which I have told you concerning them, shall come to pass.
Ye say that ye know, that the end of the world cometh; ye say also that ye know, that the Heavens and the earth shall pass away; and in this ye say truly, for so it is; but these things which I have told you, shall not pass away until all shall be fulfiled. And this I have told you concerning Jerusalem, and when that day shall come, shall a remnant be scattered among all nations, but they shall be gathered again; but they shall remain until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And in that day shall be heard of wars and rumors of wars, and the whole earth shall be in commotion, and men’s hearts shall fail them, and they shall say that Christ delay eth his coming until the end of the earth. And the love of men shall wax cold, and iniquity shall abound; and when the time of the Gentiles is come in, a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness, and it shall be the fulness of my Gospel; but they receive it not, for they perceive not the light, and they turn their hearts from me because of the precepts of men; and in that generation shall the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled : and there shall be men standing in that generation, that shall not pass until they shall see an overflowing scourge; for a desolating sickness shall cover the land; but my disciples shall stand in holy places and shall not be moved, but among the wicked, men shall lift up their voices and curse God and die; and there shall be earthquakes, also, in divers places, and desolations, yet men will harden their hearts against me; and they will take up the sword one against another and they will kill one another: and now, when I the Lord had spoken these words unto my disciples, they were troubled, and I said unto them, be not troubled, for when all these things shall come to pass, ye may know that the promises which have been made unto you, shall be fulfilled, and when the light shall begin to break forth, it shall be with them like unto a parable which I will show you: ye look and behold the fig trees, and ye see them with your eyes, and ye say when they begin to shoot forth and their leaves are yet tender, ye say that summer is now nigh at hand; even so it shall be in that day, when they shall see all these things, then shall they know that the hour is nigh.
And it shall come to pass that he that feareth me shall be looking for the great day of the Lord to come, even for the signs of the coming of the son of man; and they shall see signs and wonders, for they shall be shown forth in the Heavens above and in the earth beneath; and they shall behold blood and fire, and vapors of smoke; and before the day of the Lord come the sun shall be darkened, and the moon be turned into blood, and stars fall from Heaven; and the remnant shall be gathered unto this place; and then they shall look for me, and behold I will come; and they shall see me in the clouds of Heaven, clothed with power and great glory, with all the holy ; and he that watches not for me shall be cut off.
But before the arm of the Lord shall fall, an angel shall sound his trump, and the saints that have slept, shall come forth to meet me in the cloud. Wherefore if ye have slept in peace blessed are you, for as you now behold me and know that I am, even so shall ye come unto me and your souls shall live, and your redemption shall be perfected, and the saints shall come forth from the four quarters of the earth; then shall the arm of the Lord fall upon the nations, and then shall the Lord set his foot upon this mount, and it shall cleave in twain, and the earth shall tremble and reel to and fro, and the Heavens also shall shake and the Lord shall utter his voice and all the ends of the earth shall hear it, and the nations of the earth shall mourn, and they that have laughed shall see their folly, and calamity shall cover the mocker, and the scorner shall be consumed, and they that have watched for iniquity, shall be hewn down and cast into the fire.
And then shall the Jews look upon me, and say what are these wounds in thine hands, and in thy feet, then shall they know that I am the Lord; for I will say unto them, these wounds, are the wounds with which I was wounded in the house of my friends. I am he who was lifted up. I am Jesus that was crucified. I am the son of God. And then shall they weep because of their iniquities; then shall they lament because they persecuted their King. And then shall the heathen nations be redeemed, and they which knew no law shall have part in the first resurrection, and it shall be tolerable for them; and shall be bound that he shall have no place in the hearts of the children of men.
And at that day when I shall come in my glory, shall the parable be fulfilled which I spake concerning the ten virgins; for they that are wise and have received the truth and have taken the Holy Spirit for their guide, and have not been deceived; verily I say unto you, they shall not be hewn down and cast into the fire, but shall abide the day, and the earth shall be given unto them for an inheritance; and they shall multiply and wax strong, and their children shall grow up without sin unto salvation, for the Lord shall be in their midst, and his glory shall be upon them, and he will be their King and their lawgiver.
And now, behold I say unto you, it shall not be given unto you to know any farther than this until the New Testament be translated, and in it all these things shall be made known; wherefore I give unto you that ye may now it, that ye may be prepared for the things to come; for verily I say unto you that great things await you; ye hear of wars in foreign lands, but behold I say unto you they are nigh even at your doors, and not many years hence ye shall hear of wars in your own lands. Wherefore I the Lord have said gather ye out from the eastern lands, assemble ye yourselves together ye Elders of my Church; go ye forth into the western countries, call upon the inhabitants to repent, and inasmuch as they do repent, build up churches unto me; and with one heart and with one mind, gather up your riches that ye may purchase an inheritance which shall hereafter be appointed unto you, and it shall be called the , a land of peace, a city of refuge, a place of safety for the saints of the most high God; and the glory of the Lord shall be there, and the terror of the Lord also shall be there. And it shall come to pass, that the righteous shall be gathered out from among all nations, and shall come to , singing with songs of everlasting joy, even so. Amen. [p. [2]]
Excerpt of Revelation, ca. 7 Mar. 1831, in “A Prophecy Given to the Church of Christ, March 7, 1831,” The Evening and the Morning Star, June 1832, [2] [D&C 45:1–67, 71]. This version reflects editing marks made in Revelation Book 1, indicating that the latter was used as a source text for the former.
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.