Discourse, 26 May 1842
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Source Note
JS, Discourse, , Hancock Co., IL, 26 May 1842. Featured version copied [ca. 26 May 1842] in Relief Society Minute Book, [51]–[53]; handwriting of ; CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book.
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Historical Introduction
On the evening of 26 May 1842, JS spoke to the about showing mercy to individuals who had sinned and helping them to reform. He gave this discourse at the organization’s ninth meeting, held on the second floor of JS’s in , Illinois. Accompanied by his wife , president of the Female Relief Society, he arrived late and began his sermon shortly after entering.JS began by reading the fourteenth chapter of Ezekiel. He then counseled the assembled women to take responsibility for their own salvation. He especially emphasized being merciful to those in the community who had erred and encouraging them to repent. Although vague, these instructions seem to reference women in who had been seduced and deceived by and other men who told them their immoral actions were sanctioned by JS. Two days earlier, on 24 May, Sarah Miller, Margaret Nyman, and Matilda Nyman gave depositions before the Nauvoo high council as part of the council’s investigation into unvirtuous acts committed by men and women in Nauvoo. In his 26 May discourse, JS also directed the women of the Relief Society to “put a double watch over the tongue” and to spare the from retribution from those outside the religion by not openly or publicly discussing sin or other details about their community.After JS concluded his discourse, addressed the Relief Society as its president, offering similar remarks, though she placed more emphasis on the public repudiation of sin. She agreed with JS’s direction to abandon “idle rumor and idle talk” and insisted that “sin must not be covered, especially those sins which are against the law of God and the laws of the country.” She warned that “all who walk disorderly must reform, and any knowing of heinous sins against the law of God, and refuse to expose them, becomes the offender.”recorded an account of JS’s discourse in the minutes she kept as secretary for the Relief Society. Her original notes of the meeting are apparently not extant, but she recorded the minutes, including the discourse, in the Relief Society Minute Book, presumably sometime shortly after the 26 May 1842 meeting.
Footnotes
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1
This is the location where all prior Female Relief Society of Nauvoo meetings had been held.
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2
See Historical Introduction to Notice, 11 May 1842; “Joseph Smith Documents from May through August 1842”; and Letter to Emma Smith and the Relief Society, 31 Mar. 1842.
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3
JS, Journal, 24 May 1842; Nauvoo High Council Minutes, 24–25 May 1842.
Nauvoo High Council Minutes, 1839–1845. CHL. LR 3102 22.
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4
While JS’s references to guilty individuals likely applied to those who had been involved with Bennett’s seductions, JS’s admonition to keep confidences may have also related to rumors and misunderstandings about JS’s practice of plural marriage. (See “Joseph Smith Documents from May through August 1842”; Historical Introduction to Letter to Emma Smith and the Relief Society, 31 Mar. 1842; and Derr et al., First Fifty Years of Relief Society, 11–12.)
Derr, Jill Mulvay, Carol Cornwall Madsen, Kate Holbrook, and Matthew J. Grow, eds. The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History. Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2016.
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5
For the full minutes of the 26 May 1842 meeting of the Relief Society, see Derr et al., First Fifty Years of Relief Society, 68–72.
Derr, Jill Mulvay, Carol Cornwall Madsen, Kate Holbrook, and Matthew J. Grow, eds. The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History. Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2016.
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