William W. Phelps, “Rise and Progress of the Church of Christ,” April 1833
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Source Note
[], “Rise and Progress of the Church of Christ,” in The Evening and the Morning Star (Independence, MO), Apr. 1833, vol. 1, no. 11, p. [4] (p. [84] of total volume); edited by William W. Phelps. The copy used for transcription is currently part of a partially bound volume held at CHL; includes redactions and archival marking.The article is the third item in this number of The Evening and the Morning Star. The issue comprises four leaves, making eight pages that measure 1215/16 x 9⅞ inches (33 x 25 cm). The text on each page is set in two columns. The copy used for transcription has apparently been in continuous church custody since 1890, when it was donated to the Church Historian’s Office by Levi Jackman.
Footnotes
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The bound volume includes a letter pasted onto the second flyleaf indicating the provenance: “Presented to the Historians Office Feb. 23, 1890. Elder Levi Jackman . . . presented to the Historians Office No. 2 to 14 inclusive of the ‘Evening and Morning Star,’ published in Independence Jackson Co. Mo. which he had preserved in good condition through all the mobbing, driving, persecution and wandering from Jackson Co. to the present day 38 years.” A library adhesive label and a Church Historian’s Office stamp are found within the volume.
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Historical Introduction
Before his baptism on 16 June 1831, traveled from his home in , New York, to , Ohio, where he told JS that he wished to “do the will of the Lord.” In response, a 14 June revelation directed Phelps to travel to , where he was to be “ordained to assist my servant to do the work of printing, and of selecting, and writing books for schools, in this church.”The following month, another revelation called to be “a printer unto the church.” At a church conference held in that fall, Phelps was “instructed to stop at , on his way to , and purchase a press and types, for the purpose of establishing and publishing a monthly paper at , Jackson county, Missouri, to be called ‘The Evening and Morning Star.’” In its prospectus, Phelps indicated that this newspaper would “discuss the revelations of God and provide the Saints with beneficial information,” based upon “sacred sources.” The first fourteen issues of The Evening and the Morning Star were published in Independence beginning in June 1832. In July 1833, enemies of the Mormons destroyed the . Operations were transferred to Kirtland, Ohio, where , now the editor, published ten more issues from December 1833 to September 1834.Prior to the forced abandonment of printing operations, JS periodically included record-keeping instructions in his correspondence to . In a letter of 31 July 1832, JS asked Phelps to remind of Whitmer’s duty to “keep a history of the church & the gathering.” In January 1833, Phelps printed long excerpts from another JS letter, dated 27 November 1832, instructing church leaders in Missouri on the importance of keeping “a history, and a general church record of all things, that transpire in Zion and of all those who consecrate properties and receive inheritances, legally from the bishop; and also, their manner of life, and their faith and works: and also, of all the apostates, who apostatize after receiving their inheritance.” On 11 January 1833, JS advised Phelps, “We wish you to render the Star as interesting as possable by setting forth the rise progress and faith of the church, as well as the doctrine for if you do not render it more interesting than at present it will fall, and the church suffer a great Loss thereby.”fulfilled JS’s 11 January request in his article “Rise and Progress of the Church of Christ,” published in the April 1833 issue of The Evening and the Morning Star. He devoted eight paragraphs to the church’s rise, or early history, and then briefly addressed its progress and explained some of its beliefs and practices. Although he concluded with a promise “to continue an account of the rise and progress of the church,” the subsequent Star issues edited by Phelps—May, June, and July 1833—contain no narrative histories comparable to the April “Rise and Progress of the Church of Christ.” The June and July issues carried articles titled “Progress of the Church of Christ,” but these consisted of detailed letters and reports from proselytizing elders on the missionary activities of the church.No known manuscript version of ’s article is extant. The April 1833 number of The Evening and the Morning Star also includes a report of a meeting held on 6 April 1833, indicating that the issue was not published until after that date.
Footnotes
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JS History, vol. A-1, 124; Revelation, 14 June 1831, in Book of Commandments 57:5 [D&C 55:4]. Phelps had extensive experience as a newspaper editor, having worked for several newspapers in New York: the Western Courier in Homer, the Lake Light in Trumansburg, and the Ontario Phoenix in Canandaigua. (Bowen, “Versatile W. W. Phelps,” 6–7, 16–18, 26–28.)
JS History / Smith, Joseph, et al. History, 1838–1856. Vols. A-1–F-1 (original), A-2–E-2 (fair copy). Historian’s Office, History of the Church, 1839–ca. 1882. CHL. CR 100 102, boxes 1–7. The history for the period after 5 Aug. 1838 was composed after the death of Joseph Smith.
A Book of Commandments, for the Government of the Church of Christ, Organized according to Law, on the 6th of April, 1830. Zion [Independence], MO: W. W. Phelps, 1833. Also available in Robin Scott Jensen, Richard E. Turley Jr., Riley M. Lorimer, eds., Revelations and Translations, Volume 2: Published Revelations. Vol. 2 of the Revelations and Translations series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2011).
Bowen, Walter Dean. “The Versatile W. W. Phelps—Mormon Writer, Educator and Pioneer.” Master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1958.
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Revelation, 20 July 1831, in Doctrine and Covenants 27:5, 1835 ed. [D&C 57:11–13].
Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter Day Saints: Carefully Selected from the Revelations of God. Compiled by Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, and Frederick G. Williams. Kirtland, OH: F. G. Williams, 1835. Also available in Robin Scott Jensen, Richard E. Turley Jr., Riley M. Lorimer, eds., Revelations and Translations, Volume 2: Published Revelations. Vol. 2 of the Revelations and Translations series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2011).
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JS History, vol. A-1, 154.
JS History / Smith, Joseph, et al. History, 1838–1856. Vols. A-1–F-1 (original), A-2–E-2 (fair copy). Historian’s Office, History of the Church, 1839–ca. 1882. CHL. CR 100 102, boxes 1–7. The history for the period after 5 Aug. 1838 was composed after the death of Joseph Smith.
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No copy of the original printed prospectus is known to exist, but it was published in Kirtland in 1835 as part of the reprinted Evening and Morning Star, in which it is dated 23 February 1832. The first known non-Mormon mention of Phelps’s prospectus for the Star was in the 31 March 1832 issue of the Philadelphia Album, which cited the prospectus at length. (William W. Phelps, The Evening and the Morning Star Prospectus, Evening and Morning Star, June 1832 [Jan. 1835], 1–2; “A ‘Mormonite’ Newspaper,” Philadelphia Album, 31 Mar. 1832, 101.)
Evening and Morning Star. Edited reprint of The Evening and the Morning Star. Kirtland, OH. Jan. 1835–Oct. 1836.
Philadelphia Album. Philadelphia. 1826–1834.
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JS, Hiram, OH, to William W. Phelps, [Independence, MO], 31 July 1832, copy, JS Collection, CHL.
Smith, Joseph. Collection, 1827–1846. CHL. MS 155.
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“Let Every Man Learn His Duty,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Jan. 1833, [5]; see also JS, Kirtland, OH, to William W. Phelps, [Independence, MO], 27 Nov. 1832, in JS Letterbook 1, pp. 1–4 [D&C 85].
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
JS Letterbook 1 / Smith, Joseph. “Letter Book A,” 1832–1835. Joseph Smith Collection. CHL. MS 155, box 2, fd. 1.
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JS, Kirtland, OH, to William W. Phelps, [Independence, MO], 11 Jan. 1833, in JS Letterbook 1, pp. 18–20; see also Minute Book 1, 13 Jan. 1833. Even before JS wrote this instruction, Phelps planned to report the progress of the church by soliciting from missionaries in the field letters that would provide “all matters connected with their mission, embracing historical facts, the number of sheaves the faithful laborers are blessed with, and all else, that may be well-pleasing in the sight of him who said, What thou seest, write in a book.” Extracts of letters from missionaries appeared regularly in the Star beginning in November 1832. After printing operations for the Star relocated to Kirtland, editor Oliver Cowdery continued the practice of reporting the growth of outlying branches of the church by publishing letters under the headings of “Progress of the Church of the Latter Day Saints” and “The Progress of the Gospel” in the May and August 1834 issues. (Notice, The Evening and the Morning Star, Aug. 1832, [7].)
JS Letterbook 1 / Smith, Joseph. “Letter Book A,” 1832–1835. Joseph Smith Collection. CHL. MS 155, box 2, fd. 1.
Minute Book 1 / “Conference A,” 1832–1837. CHL. Also available at josephsmithpapers.org.
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
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“The Sixth of April,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Apr. 1833, [5].
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
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