Discourse, 7 November 1841, as Reported by Wilford Woodruff
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Source Note
JS, Discourse, , Hancock, Co., IL, 7 Nov. 1841. Featured version copied [ca. 7 Nov. 1841] in Wilford Woodruff, Journal, vol. 4, 1 Jan. 1841–31 Dec. 1842, p. [109]; handwriting of ; Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, 1828–1898, CHL.Wilford Woodruff, Journal, vol. 4, 1 Jan. 1841–31 Dec. 1842; handwriting of ; 183 pages; Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, CHL. Includes charts, drawings, redactions, and use marks.Bound blank book measuring 6¼ × 4 × 1 inches (16 × 10 × 2½ cm), with leatherbinding. The volume contains 124 leaves (248 pages) measuring 6 × 3¾ inches (15 × 9½ cm), with an additional loose leaf of yellow paper that was folded and placed at the end of the journal. The outer edges of the leaves have a shell pattern with blue and red bodies and white veins. The front and back covers contain the remnants of a brass clasp that was presumably used to hold the book closed. Toward the top of the spine, the inscriptions “WW” and “1841–2” are written in black ink. A fragment of an old Church Historian’s Office sticker inscribed “184[1]” and “18[42]” remains near the bottom of the spine.On an unknown date, the inside of the front cover of the journal was labeled by an unidentified scribe: “3 | January 1st 1841, | to | December 31, 1842,”. inscribed his journal in two parts on the first 182 pages, leaving two pages blank between the parts. The remainder of the volume is blank, except for three pages that Woodruff later used to record baptisms for the dead that he and his wife, Phebe Carter Woodruff, participated in during 1842 and 1844.It is unclear when Woodruff donated the volume to the Church Historian’s Office (now CHL). and his assistants drew upon the volume for information as he wrote volume C-1 of the multivolume manuscript history of the church during 1845. and the Church Historian’s Office staff similarly drew upon the journals in writing an addendum for volume C-1 during 1854. Woodruff’s “Private Papers” were listed in a catalog record that was produced by the Church Historian’s Office in March 1858. A July 1858 inventory clarified that these papers included Woodruff’s journals. The journals likewise appear in an inventory produced circa 1878. The volume’s inclusion in these inventories suggests continuous institutional custody.
Footnotes
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1
See JS History, vol. C-1, 1232, 1242, 1244; and Woodruff, Journal, 6 and 29 Oct.; 14 Nov. 1841.
Woodruff, Wilford. Journals, 1833–1898. Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, 1828–1898. CHL. MS 1352.
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2
See JS History, vol. C-1 Addenda Book, 19–20, 44–45; and Woodruff, Journal, 7 and 21 Nov. 1841.
Woodruff, Wilford. Journals, 1833–1898. Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, 1828–1898. CHL. MS 1352.
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3
“Historian’s Office Catalogue Book March 1858,” [25], Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL.
Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.
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4
“Contents of the Historian and Recorder’s Office—G. S. L. City July 1858,” 9, Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL.
Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.
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5
“Index of Records and Journals in the Historian’s Office 1878,” [25], Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL.
Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.
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Historical Introduction
On Sunday, 7 November 1841, JS delivered a discourse to the in , Illinois, counseling them not to judge others unrighteously. According to , JS and members of the arrived at the grounds near the Nauvoo , where they found “many hundreds of Saints” gathered for worship. JS invited recently returned missionary William O. Clark to preach, and Clark sermonized for two hours on “charity, temperence and every thing that is good and lovely.” Clark evidently gave particular attention to the subject of temperance, likely advocating the ideology of the temperance movement popular in nineteenth-century , which condemned the excessive consumption of alcohol.Following Clark’s sermon, JS addressed the congregation and chastised Clark, stating that Clark had used “the sectarian method of preaching” and that “by such preaching no one could learn the principles of righteousness.” JS then spoke on the meaning of temperance and on other principles, including charity. He urged the Saints not to make accusations of sin against each other because doing so followed the example of the devil. JS explained that the Lord’s mercy and “Charity coverd a multitude of sins.” JS also addressed the subject of superstition, explaining that many of his own actions were calculated to “break down” superstitions and traditions.Multiple accounts of this discourse exist. Both and mentioned the sermon in their diary entries for 7 November. Richards’s entry includes only a brief summary of the sermon; Woodruff’s account captures somewhat more of JS’s remarks and was possibly created from notes Woodruff took during the sermon. Four days after JS delivered the discourse, Richards wrote a detailed account of the sermon in a letterlink when version posted to his brother Levi. Richards explained in the letter, however, that he was “wholly incapaci[t]ated for giving a correct description of the sermon” and cautioned that his summary was not written “for the press.” In his efforts to compile the history of the church, Richards drew upon his short diary entry to record a synopsis of the sermon in his rough draft notes. That synopsis was copied into JS’s multivolume manuscript history of the church before later being crossed out. At some point between 18 October and 20 November 1854, with the help of the Historian’s Office staff, church historian , who was likely in attendance when JS gave the original discourse, expanded the account of the sermon as part of the addenda to volume C-1 of the manuscript history. He drew upon Woodruff’s diary and presumably his own memory as his main sources for the sermon. Although these other renditions of the sermon illuminate the text, Woodruff’s rendering represents the most contemporaneous account of the sermon and is the version featured here, with details from the other accounts noted in the footnotes.
Footnotes
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1
Woodruff, Journal, 7 Nov. 1841. Wilford Woodruff wrote, “I first called upon Br Joseph with some of the Twelve from thence to B[righam] Young, from thence to the meeting ground near the Temple.” Brigham Young’s reminiscent history for the date records, “Br. Joseph & several of the Twelve called on me, we went to meeting, when Joseph spoke on temperance virtue, charity & truth.” In addition to Woodruff and Young, seven other members of the Twelve (Heber C. Kimball, Orson Pratt, William Smith, Lyman Wight, John Taylor, George A. Smith, and Willard Richards) were in or around Nauvoo in November 1841 and could have attended the meeting. (Woodruff, Journal, 7 Nov. 1841; Historian’s Office, Brigham Young History Drafts, 59; “An Epistle of the Twelve,” Times and Seasons, 15 Nov. 1841, 2:600–602.)
Woodruff, Wilford. Journals, 1833–1898. Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, 1828–1898. CHL. MS 1352.
Historian’s Office. Histories of the Twelve, 1856–1858, 1861. CHL. CR 100 93.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
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2
Willard Richards, Nauvoo, IL, to Levi Richards, Manchester, England, 11 Nov. 1841, typescript, Richards Family Papers, CHL. William Oglesby Clark was born in Madison, Indiana, on 25 June 1817. He was baptized by Morris Phelps on 12 April 1835 in Will County, Illinois. On 30 May 1841, he left Montrose, Iowa Territory, on a mission to northern Illinois and Wisconsin. He returned to Nauvoo on 6 November 1841. (Short, “Biography of William O. Clark,” 131, 134–141.)
“Richards Family Letters 1840–1849.” Typescript. Richards Family Papers, 1965. CHL.
Short, Julia R. “Biography of William O. Clark.” Journal of History 6 (Jan. 1913): 131–176.
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3
According to George A. Smith, Clark admonished the Saints to practice “temperance in the extreme.” JS also discussed temperance in his sermon, likely in response to Clark’s remarks. (JS History, vol. C-1 Addenda Book, 19. For more information on the temperance movement in nineteenth-century America, see Walters, American Reformers, 125–146; and Historical Introduction to Revelation, 27 Feb. 1833 [D&C 89].)
Walters, Ronald G. American Reformers: 1815–1860. Rev. ed. New York: Hill and Wang, 1997.
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4
Willard Richards, Nauvoo, IL, to Levi Richards, Manchester, England, 11 Nov. 1841, typescript, Richards Family Papers, CHL. The term sectarian was commonly used in the 1830s and 1840s, often pejoratively, to denote a mode of thought “governed by the spirit of bigotry and proselytism.” The term was specifically used to highlight the religious divisions within American society. In this context, JS may have used it to reference temperance societies, including the emerging Washingtonian movement, which some observers charged with sectarianism. Accordingly, in making this statement, JS was evidently saying that Clark’s preaching was divisive and resembled the tactics of the period’s proponents of temperance reform. (Tappan, “Life and Writings of President Appleton,” 371; Phillips, Campbellism Exposed, 195–196; Wilentz, Chants Democratic, 311, 315.)
“Richards Family Letters 1840–1849.” Typescript. Richards Family Papers, 1965. CHL.
Tappan, Benjamin. “Life and Writings of President Appleton.” Literary and Theological Review 4, no. 15 (Sept. 1837): 351–372.
Phillips, William. Campbellism Exposed; or, Strictures on the Peculiar Tenets of Alexander Campbell. Cincinnati: Hitchcock and Walden, 1837.
Wilentz, Sean. Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788–1850. 20th anniversary ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
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5
JS History, vol. C-1 Addenda Book, 20; Willard Richards, Nauvoo, IL, to Levi Richards, Manchester, England, 11 Nov. 1841, typescript, Richards Family Papers, CHL.
“Richards Family Letters 1840–1849.” Typescript. Richards Family Papers, 1965. CHL.
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6
According to Willard Richards, superstition was the main topic of JS’s sermon. Richards wrote in his diary that JS “preached on supersitin.” Richards then wrote his brother Levi that he had heard JS preach “on Superstition, &c.” Both Richards’s rough draft notes and the original summary of the sermon in the manuscript history of the church likewise state that JS “preached on the principles of superstition.” (Richards, Journal, 7 Nov. 1841; Willard Richards, Nauvoo, IL, to Levi Richards, Manchester, England, 11 Nov. 1841, typescript, Richards Family Papers, CHL; Historian’s Office, JS History, Draft Notes, 7 Nov. 1841; JS History, vol. C-1, 1244.)
Richards, Willard. Journals, 1836–1853. Willard Richards, Papers, 1821–1854. CHL. MS 1490, boxes 1–2.
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7
Only a typescript copy of the letter is presently available; the original letter to Levi Richards has not been located. (Willard Richards, Nauvoo, IL, to Levi Richards, Manchester, England, 11 Nov. 1841, typescript, Richards Family Papers, CHL.)
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8
Historian’s Office, JS History, Draft Notes, 7 Nov. 1841; JS History, vol. C-1, 1244.
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