, Letter, [, Herefordshire, England], to JS “and counselors,” [, Hancock Co., IL, 29 Apr. 1840]. Featured version published in Times and Seasons, June 1840, 121–122. For more complete source information, see the source note for Letter to Isaac Galland, 22 Mar. 1839.
Historical Introduction
On 29 April 1840, wrote a letter to JS and his counselors in the . Young had left , Iowa Territory, on 14 September 1839 to serve a mission to and was informing the First Presidency of the growth and status of the in Great Britain. The document appears to have primarily served as a cover letter for a report of a general of the church held two weeks earlier in , England. The letter asked JS and his counselors to correct any action of the conference they felt was amiss, conveyed the English Saints’ request for a new hymnal, and included a personal note from Young about his desire to reunite with his old friends.
The report of the conference gave detailed information about the numbers of church members and holders in the various in and Scotland. It recorded business the conference conducted, including decisions to compile and publish a hymnal and a monthly periodical and to select and a —all under the direction of the . The report, which also contained minutes of meetings the Twelve held in Preston on 14 and 16 April, was published in , Illinois, in the June 1840 issue of the Times and Seasons immediately preceding the published version of ’s letter. No manuscript copy of the letter has been located. The Times and Seasons version does not include a date or place of production. However, the published version is followed by a letter from , which Woodruff indicated was written in unused space on Young’s letter. Woodruff’s letter was dated 29 April 1840 and gave , England, as the location from which the letter was sent.
The manuscript report of the conference is in the Wilford Woodruff Collection, CHL. The letter from Wilford Woodruff to the Times and Seasons editors, Ebenezer Robinson and Don Carlos Smith, was printed accompanying the conference report in the June 1840 issue of the periodical and was apparently written on the same paper as Young’s letter. Woodruff opened his letter by saying, “As elder Young is writing, I am privileged with a space for a few lines.” (Minutes, 15 Apr. 1840, Wilford Woodruff, Collection, 1831–1905, CHL; “From England,” Times and Seasons, June 1840, 1:122.)
Woodruff, Wilford. Collection, 1831–1905. Digital scans. CHL. Originals in private possession. MS 19509.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
To Joseph Smith and counselors: dear brethren, you no doubt will have the perusal of this letter, and minutes of our ; this will give you an idea of what we are doing in this . If you see any thing in, or about the whole affair, that is not right: I ask, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you would make known unto us the mind of the Lord, and his will concerning us. I believe that I am as willing to do the will of the Lord, and take counsel of my brethren, and be a servant of the , as ever I was in my life; but I can tell you, I would like to be with my old [p. 121]