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Discourse, 16 April 1843, as Reported by Willard Richards

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Discourse, 16 April 1843, as Reported by Willard Richards

Source Note

JS, Discourse, [, Hancock Co., IL, 16 Apr. 1843]. Featured version copied [ca. 16 Apr. 1843] in JS, Journal, 1842–1844, bk. 2, pp. [139]–[148]; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS, Journal, 1842–1844.

Historical Introduction

On 16 April 1843, JS delivered a discourse in , Illinois, on death, burial, and the resurrection. The discourse developed a theme that JS had articulated eight months earlier, when he contemplated the graves of his deceased father, , and other relatives and friends. At that time, August 1842, JS described his hope that each member of his family—including those who were buried elsewhere, such as his brother and his children who died in infancy—would be interred together in the “Tomb of Joseph,” a mausoleum JS intended to build in Nauvoo. JS’s thinking on this issue was shaped by the biblical examples of the patriarchs Jacob and Joseph, whose remains were transported from Egypt and interred in Canaan.
JS returned to this theme on 16 April 1843 during the Sunday morning services held at the unfinished , after multiple Latter-day Saints who had “lost friends” requested that he “preach a funeral sermon.” JS was especially affected by the death of , a Latter-day Saint who died in late 1842 while serving a mission in and was buried there. JS’s scribe noted in his journal that JS spoke for about two hours on “the importance of being buried with the saints & their relatives inasmuch as we shall want to see our relatives first & shall rejoice to strike hands with our parents, children &c when rising from the tomb.” , another of JS’s scribes, hurriedly sought to capture the discourse as he heard it. Richards may have used loose paper to keep notes, which he later copied—and perhaps slightly refined—into JS’s journal. also inscribed an account of the discourse in his own journal. Unlike Richards’s irregular notes, Woodruff’s version is fairly polished, suggesting that he reconstructed JS’s words after the fact from memory or by using notes he took at the time or both, all of which were common practices for Woodruff. Both the Richards and Woodruff accounts of JS’s discourse are featured here. Annotation that appears in Richards’s version of the discourse is not repeated in corresponding locations in Woodruff’s version.

Footnotes

  1. Reflections and Blessings, 16 and 23 Aug. 1842; see also Genesis 49:29–32; 50:2–13, 25; Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32; and Brown, In Heaven as It Is on Earth, chap. 4.

    Brown, Samuel M. In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

  2. Woodruff, Journal, 16 Apr. 1843.

    Woodruff, Wilford. Journals, 1833–1898. Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, 1828–1898. CHL. MS 1352.

  3. Parley P. Pratt, Alton, IL, 1 Apr. 1843, Letter to the Editor, Times and Seasons, 1 Apr. 1843, 4:148–149. JS learned approximately two weeks before he gave the featured discourse that Barnes had died.

    Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

  4. JS, Journal, 16 Apr. 1843; Clayton, Journal, 16 Apr. 1843.

  5. See Historical Introduction to Discourse, 4 July 1843.

  6. Woodruff evidently left three blank pages in his journal with the intention of filling them with the discourse, but he used only two and one-third of the pages. (See Smith, “Joseph Smith’s Sermons,” 224–225.)

    Smith, William V. “Joseph Smith’s Sermons and the Early Mormon Documentary Record.” In Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources, edited by Mark Ashurst-McGee, Robin Scott Jensen, and Sharalyn D. Howcroft, 190–230. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. *Discourse, 16 April 1843, as Reported by Willard Richards Journal, December 1842–June 1844; Book 2, 10 March 1843–14 July 1843 Discourse, 16 April 1843, as Reported by William Clayton History Draft [1 March–31 December 1843] History, 1838–1856, volume D-1 [1 August 1842–1 July 1843] “History of Joseph Smith”
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Page [148]

the language of the archangel to express my feelings once to my frends. but I never expect to
when othe[r]s regoice I regoice. when I they mourn I would mourn—
to . let me admi[ni]ster comfort, you shall soon have the company of your companion in a wo[r]ld of glory— & the frends of .— & all the saints who are mourning, this has been a warning voice to us all. to be sober— & diligent— & lay aside mirth & vanity. & folly.—— & be prepard to die tomorrow [p. [148]]
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Source Note

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Go to previous page 9

Page [148]

Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Discourse, 16 April 1843, as Reported by Willard Richards
ID #
1049
Total Pages
10
Print Volume Location
JSP, D12:207–211
Handwriting on This Page
  • Willard Richards

Footnotes

  1. TEXT: Possibly “feeling,” or “feeling.” See Book of Mormon, 1840 ed., 295–296 [Alma chap. 29].

  2. TEXT: Or “you”.

  3. Bates’s twenty-year-old wife, Jenette Pratt Bates, died of consumption sometime during the week ending Friday, 10 February 1843. (“Reports of Deaths,” Wasp, 22 Feb. 1843, [3].)

    The Wasp. Nauvoo, IL. Apr. 1842–Apr. 1843.

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