At a meeting of the held on 28 April 1842, JS delivered a discourse on the gift of healing, the order of the , and related topics. This was the society’s sixth meeting and the third time JS addressed its members. JS took 1 Corinthians chapters 12 and 13 as his text, emphasizing to society members the importance of magnifying whatever callings they individually held, rather than aspiring to office. Responding to circulating criticism that the women leading the organization were acting improperly in administering blessings of healing by , JS spoke at length on the topic, opining that miraculous signs such as healing the sick “should follow all that believe whether male or female” and that “if the sisters should have faith to heal the sick, let all hold their tongues, and let every thing roll on.” Contemplating his own mortality, and echoing a previous assertion that he would make the society a “kingdom of priests,” JS declared that he would deliver over to the society and the church the “ of the kingdom.” Secretary noted in the minutes following JS’s discourse that “the spirit of the Lord was pour’d out in a very powerful manner, never to be forgotten by those present on that interesting occasion.”
It appears contemporaneously took notes of JS’s instructions, as well as the rest of the meeting’s proceedings, on a separate document—no longer extant—and then, presumably shortly after the meeting, made the copy featured here in the minute book.
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.
is taught by the gift of tongues, it is not to be received for doctrine.
Prest. S. then offered instruction respecting the propriety of females administering to the sick by the — said it was according to revelation &c. said he never was plac’d in similar circumstances, and never had given the same instruction.
He clos’d his instructions by expressing his satisfaction in improving the opportunity. [p. [41]]
Four months earlier JS warned the Saints in Nauvoo of the dangers of speaking in tongues, clarifying that “the Gift of Tongues, by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the church, is for the benefit of the servants of God to preach to unbelievers, as on the days of Pentecost.” (Discourse, 26 Dec. 1841.)