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Letter from D. S. Perry, circa 8 August 1843

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Letter from D. S. Perry, circa 8 August 1843

Source Note

D. S. Perry, Letter, , Hancock Co., IL, to JS, , Hancock Co., IL, [ca. 8 Aug. 1843]. Featured version published in “Communicated,” Times and Seasons, 1 Aug. 1843, vol. 4, no. 18, 281. For more complete source information see the source note for Letter to Isaac Galland, 22 Mar. 1839.

Historical Introduction

Likely on or before 8 August 1843, D. S. Perry wrote a letter in , Illinois, to JS proclaiming his intention to join the and expressed devotion to the cause of the Latter-day Saints. Perry apparently spoke with JS the evening before he wrote this letter. In the letter, Perry indicated that this conversation made a deep impression on him and that he hoped to be and find employment that would allow him to be of service to the Saints. If Perry did indeed unite with the church and provide any service, it was not recorded or has been lost from the historical record.
Perry’s letter was received by JS or someone in his office before being included in the Times and Seasons issue dated 1 August 1843, which was published on or after 11 August 1843. The 1 August issue included an obituary for Judge , who died of cholera on 11 August 1843. Perry’s letter offers almost no indication of the date on which he wrote it, only that it was a Tuesday. The Tuesday before 11 August was 8 August 1843. The issue of the Times and Seasons in which the letter was printed also contains documents dated April through August 1843. It is therefore impossible to tell precisely when Perry wrote this letter, but it was likely on or before 8 August 1843.
The original letter is apparently no longer extant. The version featured here is the one published in the Times and Seasons.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    “Obituary,” Times and Seasons, 1 Aug. 1843, 4:287.

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

Page 281

Tuesday, A. M., .
Joseph Smith, Sir:— In order that an individual case may not engross too much of your valuable time, I take the liberty of using this method to acquaint you with the state of my feelings regarding religion.
The words you were kind enough to bestow on me last evening have made a deep and, I trust, lasting impression. The way of salvation has been pointed out to me in a manner perfectly plain and comprehensible, while what sectarians term “mysterious truths,” have been made as clear and intelligible as if written out with a sunbeam. Although I may still be in ignorance, as regards many of the minor points and technicalities of the doctrine of the , yet, by the blessing of God, I feel that light has been shed upon me sufficient to enable me (by employing the means) to save my immortal soul, and obtain an inheritance with the saints in glory. That light, as was to be expected, has had the effect to render me deeply anxious and solicitious to become united with the brethren of this church in the bonds of the new faith; to the end that I may be permitted to drink the water of life in a state as pure and undefiled as was the original fount, and not coagulated and gross with all the impurities the stream has gathered in traversing countries teeming with paganism and an age dark with the night of barbarism.
I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and have repented in all sincerity, of my sins, which in magnitude are like unto a great mountain with a weight sufficient to crush a nation, but from the “large bounty of indulgent heaven,” I look for forgivness. In the mean time I wait with trembling anxiety the ceremony of , the and all the train of blessings that follow. My ambition is to become a good and useful member of the church, as far as the little strength God has given me will allow, and I have for some time had a presentment, that ere I am gathered to my fathers, it will be my exceeding good fortune to do the Latter Day Saints some signal service, whether it be in the field, the sacred desk, or some more humble walk, I am unable to conjecture. But if such a presentment, (or, if you please, idea,) I cannot divert myself. From the manner in which God revealed his will unto me, I feel a conviction that he has endowed me with some quality or talent, that in some great crisis in the career of the saints, will be called forth unto their good, and unto his glory.
With many sentiments of respect and esteem,
D. S. Perry [p. 281]
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Source Note

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Page 281

Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Letter from D. S. Perry, circa 8 August 1843
ID #
1129
Total Pages
1
Print Volume Location
JSP, D13:30–32
Handwriting on This Page
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Footnotes

  1. [1]

    “Mysterious truths” were believed to require special or specific guidance to understand, and different churches claimed their own superior or more accurate understanding. For example, Catholic pastor Demetrius Gallitzin wrote that Protestants, like individual Catholic pastors, needed the Catholic Church as an “unerring guide” to understand the “true sense of Holy Writ” and its “mysterious truths” and that without it, readers of the Bible would “stumble at every step.” Similarly, Anglican priest Thomas Jee wrote that God had established a standing ministry with his apostles and had sent forth ministers to publish his “mysterious truths” to his children. By contrast, JS sought to make complex spiritual truths plain to others. Brigham Young later recounted: “When I first heard him preach, he brought heaven and earth together; and all the priests of the day could not tell me anything correct about heaven, hell, God, angels, or devils. . . . When I saw Joseph Smith, he took heaven, figuratively speaking, and brought it down to earth . . . and that is the beauty of his mission.” (Gallitzin, Defence of Catholic Principles, 40–41; Jee, Sermons on Some of the Doctrines and Duties of the Christian Religion, 3; Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, 5:332.)

    Gallitzin, Demetrius A. A Defence of Catholic Principles, in a Letter to a Protestant Clergyman. To Which Is Added, an Appeal to the Protestant Public. 4th ed. New York: Catholic Publication Society, 1837.

    Jee, Thomas. Sermons on Some of the Doctrines and Duties of the Christian Religion, Addressed Particularly to Political Economists and Guardians of the Poor. London: R. B. Seeley and W. Burnside, 1837.

    Journal of Discourses. 26 vols. Liverpool: F. D. Richards, 1855–1886.

  2. [2]

    See Revelation 21:6; 22:1.

  3. [3]

    See Stepney, “Horace, Book IV. Ode IX.,” 2:128.

    Stepney, George. “Horace, Book IV. Ode IX.” In Supplement to the British Poets, edited by Thomas Park, vol. 2, pp. 126–128. London: Stanhope Press, 1808.