Mark Twain got the credit, but Artemus Ward got closer to the polygamists

One hundred and fifty-plus years ago, the Mormons, those peculiar polygamists in the mountains, were foil for toilers in wit and satire. Mark Twain’s portrayal of Brigham Young, polygamists, the Book of Mormon and Mormon wives is archived forever in the classic novel, “Roughing It.” Twain deserves his fame. In a non-digital world, he was more popular than Jon Stewart, Bill Maher or Dennis Miller combined. And Mormons were ready comic foil. In the winter 1974 BYU Studies, then-BYU professor Richard H. Cracroft wrote, “Mormonism and its ‘peculiar institutions,’ … were excellent targets for reform and expose, as well as all types of humor.”

As mentioned, Twain gets the credit today for being the “Mormon expert” of the late-middle 19th century, but truth is, there was another humorist of Twain’s era who knew the Mormons far better than Twain. As Cracroft points out in his article, “Distorting Polygamy for Fun and Profit: Artemus Ward and Mark Twain Among the Mormons,” the almost forgotten lecturer/writer humorist, Ward, owed his life to a polygamist Mormon doctor and the nursing of plural Relief Society wives after he contracted a form of typhoid fever while visiting Salt Lake City in 1864.

Ward, an acclaimed lecturer who preferred talking to writing, effusively thanked the Saints after recovering. In a letter to Twain, Ward wrote “the saints have been wonderfully kind to me. I could not have been better or more tenderly nursed at home. God bless them all.”

That gratitude, though, didn’t stop Ward as describing Mormonism as “Petticoatism and plunder” a few months later during a tour of lectures on Mormonism. The temptation to ridicule, demonize and find humor in a culture that most Americans loathed was too great for ward, who like any comedian, needed fresh material.

Ward, whose real name was Charles Farrer Browne, was a frail man who eventually succumbed to tuberculosis in 1867 at the young age of 33. His early death, followed by Twain’s, or Samuel Clemens’, long life, is likely the reason he is unknown today.

In the BYU Studies article, Cracroft points out that Twain’s well-known anecdotes about life with the Mormons were written a decade or so after he had visited Salt Lake City. In fact, Cracroft relates that before he wrote chapters about Mormon life, Twain asked his brother for anecdotes of that time, “for I remember next to nothing about the matter,” Twain said to his brother, Orion.

Now, writing is s skill, and there’s no shortage of great writers who put others’ memories on page, Boswell and Rick Bragg come to mind … but Twain’s very witty accounts of The Book of Mormon and the generosity of Mormon men marrying many homely Mormon women owe a lot to Twain’s careful reading of Ward’s accounts among the Utahns. I am not excusing Twain of plagiarism, although perhaps more than a little journalistic license was practiced.

“Roughing It” remains a great book, but more of us should read the book that inspired Twain’s chapters, “Artemus Ward (his) travels among the Mormons.” Published in 1865, it’s available to read for free at Google Books. Don’t expect the early Mormons to be treated with any respect; the religion was still too strange at the end of the Civil War, but it still remains a fascinating read.

--- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs

B.H. Roberts spent most of his life defending 'The Book of Mormon'

I ran across an interesting article in the Summer 1979 issue of Brigham Young University Studies. It’s “B.H. Roberts and The Book of Mormon,” and was written by Truman Madsen. Roberts was a remarkable man. Born in England, his birth father, and later a stepfather, both abandoned him and his family. He migrated to Utah early in his life and settled through a few rocky years struggling with the Word of Wisdom before straightening out, and eventually became a general authority at the age of 31.

He remained one for the rest of his life, dying in 1933 at 76. He served in World War I as a chaplain and was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1898, although that body refused to seat him because he was a polygamist. He married three wives and had 15 children.

Roberts was unique within the LDS hierarchy for his reasoning that evolution and Gospel doctrines did not conflict. He wrote a book, “The Truth, The Way, The Life,” that was not published due to the objections of creationist Apostle Joseph Fielding Smith. It eventually was published in 1994.

In the mid-1890s Roberts almost left the church over a disagreement on whether church authorities could be active in politics. He eventually apologized for the near apostasy.

Despite his maverick views, Roberts was respected by his colleagues in the church hierarchy. He was fascinated by “The Book of Mormon,” at one point calling it the “fifth Gospel.” He spent much of the second half of his life defending the book. According to Madsen’s piece, the unique doctrines of “The Book of Mormon” — so different from traditional christianity — and the biblical and historical knowledge within “The Book of Mormon” made it impossible for any man as unlearned as Joseph Smith to create it from scratch. “It imposes what Roberts called ‘a greater tax on human credulity’ to say Joseph Smith, or anyone in the nineteenth century, created it,” writes Madsen.

Roberts, explains Madsen, has a different viewpoint of what the book’s translation was like than perhaps the typical Latter-day Saint. Roberts did not regard it as “magical,” or in other words, just viewing the Urim and Thummim, seeing words, and writing them down. “On the contrary, ‘brain sweat’ was required, and preparation, and labor,” writes Madsen.

Besides, word-for-word translation is impossible, Roberts maintained. Smith had to use, in instances, what he had available to translate. That explains near copies of biblical chapters, biblical-like phrases, and even the inclusion of terms such as horses in “The Book of Mormon.”

Madsen lists 10 “attributes that define Roberts’ devotion to “The Book of Mormon.” One bit of information that surprised me was that Roberts enjoyed writing creative fiction based on “The Book of Mormon.” I hope it was better than most of the kitsch published today.

He wrote stories about Moroni, the Nephite nation and even a novel about Alma’s son, Corianton, which is described as “a tale of sneaking indulgence, and remorse and renewal.” I have read it and it’s a kitschy, fun read available for free on the Internet or via Kindle. Madsen adds that Roberts desperately wanted to see a major film based on “The Book of Mormon” produced. A movie was made of the Corianton novel, BYU has the only remaining copy and it was shown several years ago.

One category Madsen describes Roberts in regards to “The Book of Mormon” is the role of “devil’s advocate.” As mentioned earlier, Roberts intellect brought him much respect among general authorities. He spent many of the final years of his life providing church leaders with hypothetical attacks on the legitimacy of “The Book of Mormon.” These efforts, which Madsen compares to a skilled lawyer preparing to better understand a courtroom adversary, have led to claims that Roberts lost or questioned his testimony regarding “The Book of Mormon.”

Madsen doubts these assertions. Roberts told colleagues that these reports were never intended to be balanced. They were intended as tools to increase learning about “The Book of Mormon.”

Roberts’ greatest influence as a church leader is that his example reminds us that our beliefs need to be tested for them to grow. If they remain unchallenged, they stay weak and susceptible to failure in times of stress.

Yet Roberts remained in awe of the personal power “The Book of Mormon” gave him. Madsen writes, “Though renowned for his gifts as a speaker, B.H. Roberts agonized over the fact that he could never communicate the intensity, the power, the consuming white light that seemed to him to shine through the book.”

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardNET

Book an overview of Joseph Smith's legal encounters

The interest in “Sustaining the Law: Joseph Smith’s Legal Encounters,” edited by Gordon A. Madsen, Jeffrey N. Walker, and John W. Welch, BYU Studies, 2014, depends on the depth and breadth of your interest in Mormon history.

Some will find this volume of 18 essays — that includes a list of all legal events Smith was involved — dry and just plain boring. Others will delve into the minutia until the wee hours of the morning. I fall somewhere in the middle but give the collection a thumbs up.

The essays provide by-the-numbers appraisals of various legal matters and explore the strengths, and weaknesses, Smith possessed in cases.

The essays, most of which have been published before, are a diverse collection, which include Smith’s witness participation in a routine lawsuit over the sale of horses, to a “disorderly person” charge against Smith, the Book of Mormon copyright, the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society, habeus corpus law, a charge of adultery against Smith in Nauvoo, and the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor newspaper, an act that led to Smith and his brother Hyrum being murdered by a mob. Although the book is favorable to Smith’s religious beliefs (at times the essayists precede his name with “the prophet...”) the legal issues are analyzed — appropriately — from secular perspectives.

In what may be the collection’s biggest strength, the legal issues of the cases are placed in the context of the times they occurred. This is an important distinction, because it allows for legal conclusions that may surprise us today. In the essay, “Legally Suppressing the Nauvoo Expositor in 1844,” by church apostle Dallin H. Oaks and first published almost 50 years ago, he makes a detailed case that the destruction of the press was more or less legal in that time period. Oaks points out that it wasn’t until 1931 that the U.S. Supreme Court reverses a Minnesota court ruling that actions such as the suppression of media by local authorities was unconstitutional. In the 1840s, it was not uncommon for local authorities to take action against entities which were defined as “public nuisances” without judicial approval.

In fact, prior to Joseph and Hyrum Smith being taken to Carthage — with a promise of safety by the governor — and subsequently being murdered, Smith had been acquitted by a non-Mormon judge in regards to the press’ destruction. The pair were unable to be bailed in Carthage only because a charge of “treason” was added. According to Oaks, the only legal blot against Smith in the Expositor case would be the destruction of the press, which would be considered “overkill” as the printed newspaper, and not the printing machine, was the “nuisance.”

Despite the legal introspection, it’s clear that the arbitrary destruction of the press by Nauvoo authorities was a deadly mistake by Smith and other Mormon leaders. Besides the outrage generated by suppressing the press, it provided the means necessary for enemies to get the Smith brothers into a jail, with a feckless governor’s sanction, and eventually murder the pair.

Some of the more interesting essays are “Being Acquitted of a ”Disorderly Person“ charge in 1826,” by Madsen, which argues that Smith was acquitted of charges that were likely related to “glass looking” or claiming to see through a stone. While the subject can be dry, essayist Nathaniel Hinckley Wasdworth in “Securing the Book of Mormon Copyright in 1829” makes the interesting observation that Smith, although obtaining a legal victory that denied a publisher the right to serialize the Book of Mormon, probably didn’t have sufficient copyright claim to win the case. Two essays, “Kirtland Safety Society,” and “Defining Adultery” take charges associated with Smith involving accusations of banking fraud and immorality. In both essays, arguments in favor of Smith’s legal positions rely on what the law’s intentions were in that time period, rather than relying on general disapproval. Another essay by Madsen points out bench mistakes and failures in a court presided by anti-Mormon Austin King that preceded a long jail stretch for Smith and others, including Parley P. Pratt, in Missouri.

In “Defining Adultery,” discussing adultery charges brought against Smith regarding Maria Lawrence, by apostates William and Wilson Law, essayist M. Scott Bradshaw notes that “under Illinois law, enacted in 1833, only open cohabitation of a man and woman not married to each other was punishable by law.” As Bradshaw adds, “Joseph’s relationships with his plural wives did not meet this definition (open).”

Besides the chronology of cases at the end of the book, there are short biographies of judges associated with cases and a glossary of legal terms. As mentioned, the chief strength of “Sustaining the Law ...” is its dispassionate look at the legal realities of the cases examined and its reliance on secular arguments — standard to the era — to overview the cases. The essays argue the law, not doctrine.

-- Doug Gibson

This post was originally published at StandardNet.

Evolution of LDS prayer circles mirrors church’s move from eccentricity

It’s been two generations since LDS prayer circles were cast out of the world and relegated to temple-ritual status. Its members-only status ironically has robbed the prayer circle of the spontaneity it once enjoyed. About nine score years ago, the original prayer circles, organized by LDS church prophet Joseph Smith, underscored the early 19th century personal-relationship-with-God theological progressiveness that shaped Mormonism. 

As D. Michael Quinn related in the Fall 1978 issue of Brigham Young University Studies, the first prayer circle, part of the 1833 School of the Prophets, imitated the protestant prayer rings. Quinn writes that participants sought visions of angels, and when that wish was granted, some shrank in fear of what their eyes beheld.

Eventually, Smith’s prayer circle began to have ritualized language resembling the prophet’s revelations that concerned future temple ordinances. As Quinn relates, the Nauvoo Prayer Circle eventually encompassed more than 65 church members, male and female. Some of the participants were members who had received the “second endowments” that are still around today but rarely, if ever, discussed at church gatherings. 

According to Quinn, the prayer circle under Smith, called the Quorum of the Anointed, was not a group that made church policy, such as the Council of the 50. Smith’s easy acceptance of women into the prayer circle provides evidence, in my opinion, of his egalitarian ideals for that time period and degree of tolerance of women’s roles in the church. After his death, prayer circles would eventually close to LDS women for a long time.

Prayer circle participation at that time was considered a somewhat elite status, writes Quinn, and that didn’t change after Smith’s death. Only about 10 percent of the heavy influx of endowed Mormons were included in circles after 1845, but still numbers swelled considerably, and more circles had to start. By 1846, it was church policy to not have women in prayer circles with LDS men. As Quinn relates, women were encouraged to meet with other sisters in Relief Society prayer gatherings. Such all-female circles were further restricted in 1896, when church leadership advised against any sisters in prayer circles. As Quinn writes, “Rarely privileged to join their husbands in the separate prayer circle meetings after 1846, Latter-day Saint women also discontinued even occasional Relief Society prayer circles by the early twentieth century.”

Quinn writes that prayer circles, still a practice with elite status, were of two states during the middle of the 19th century. There were ecclesiastical prayer circles, that included inclusion by priesthood rank, and special daily prayer circles, headed by priesthood leaders that could include men of diverse stations. Interestingly, Quinn relates, the First Presidency prayer circle sometimes functioned in a special prayer circle manner, with guests outside the church hierarchy included. Eventually, the special prayer circles, which were spread out over the church, were put under the guidance of the LDS apostles, who continued to assign priesthood subordinates to head other circles and help recruit members. Final membership to a prayer circle was decided by the First Presidency.

This arrangement for special prayer circles lasted for several decades. The “elite status” of being in a prayer circle became even more exclusive as the LDS Church grew in membership. As Quinn writes, “By 1929 the growing membership of the church had highlighted the inequity of having such special prayer circles for the privileged few.” They were soon discontinued.

However, ecclesiastical prayer circles of lower areas of the LDS Church continued well into the middle of the 20th century. These included stake prayer circles, although it was the decision of a particular stake president to have a stake prayer circle, which of course had to be approved and overseen at the highest level of the church. According to Quinn, the largest stake prayer circle was in Alberta, Canada, stake from 1948 to 1950, which had about 80 participants. There were also ward prayer circles in operation as well, notes Quinn.

The purpose of the prayer circle, according to official church doctrine, has always been to teach “the true order of prayer.” Incidents such as an 1846 prayer circle that claimed to witness counsel from the late Prophet Joseph Smith would have been greeted with skepticism 100-plus years later. The decision to restrict prayer circles to a part of the temple endowment ceremony, according to Quinn, was an administrative decision spurred by the difficulty of a worldwide church to deal with future stake and ward prayer circle requests.

Discretion and respect for temple ordinances prevents me from mentioning what occurs in a prayer circle, but in my opinion, it would not look out of place in other Christian gatherings. The history of prayer circles once being a male-only procedure is quite ironic, since it is my experience that many of today’s prayer circles are populated by men only after they have received a stern, nodding beckon from their wives.

(Quinn's article can be downloaded for free here.)

-- Doug Gibson

This column was originally published at StandardBlogs.

Temple adoptions were part of LDS evolution toward genealogy work

Editor's note: Although this Cal Grondahl cartoon is not related to this week's essay, it's a favorite of mine, done by Cal in the recent era of the popularity of The Book of Mormon Musical.

The majority of faithful Latter-day Saints who engage in temple work for the dead probably have never heard of the Law of Adoption. Yet, for roughly a half century, until 116 years ago, it was the forerunner of today’s large-scale church temple ordinances for the deceased, which are considered sacred and necessary in the LDS Church for afterlife progression.

Gordon Irving, then associate historian for the LDS Church, wrote a fascinating piece for the spring 1974 issue of BYU Studies. Titled, “The Law of Adoption: One Phase of the Development of the Mormon Concept of Salvation, 1830-1900,” Irving explains that in 1830, the genesis of the church, “early members appear to have accepted the traditional Christian view of a heaven for the righteous and a hell for the wicked.”

That would change soon. By 1832, Irving writes, the prophet Joseph Smith had published revelation that there were three separate kingdoms of glory within heaven, or salvation; furthermore, the kingdom assigned a person depended on his or her good works. At this time, the Mormon concept of hell evolved into a place called “sons of perdition,” which was restricted to very few.

The concept of eternal salvation would continue to evolve for more than half a century. Irving explains that an aspect of LDS belief that attracted many converts was its claim of authority to act in God’s name. While Smith assured Saints via revelation that “All who have died without a knowledge of this Gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom,” many wondered how a deceased loved one could attain the celestial kingdom without baptism. The solution, according to Smith, was baptism for the dead.

However, Smith’s 1843 revelation dividing the celestial kingdom into three degrees asserted that family ties, extending back to Adam, were essential to achieving exaltation, or the highest degree of the celestial kingdom. The “way to do this,” explained Smith later, was through celestial marriage in a temple. Through celestial marriage, the doctrine goes, earth’s families could be linked to a chain of family that began to Adam and subsequently, become “heirs of exaltation.”

But the exaltation doctrine created concerns that persons would attain the celestial kingdom but not its highest level because they could not link their family chains to a proper priesthood authority extending to Adam.

A solution to that dilemma was that prominent church members could be grafted — through ordination by the prophet — to the patriarchal order — thereby allowing them to “adopt as children” members of the church. This is a key reason early church members, such as John D. Lee, are often referred to as “adopted sons” of Brigham Young, or Heber C. Kimball, or other apostles.

Although Irvine says it’s unclear if adoptions occurred before Smith died, they were common when Brigham Young became prophet. In fact, there were plans to even start settlements with “adopted” families of Young, Kimball, John Taylor, Willard Richards, and other prominent LDS apostles.

According to Irvine’s article, some of the early apostles even pitched themselves and advertised for “children to adopt.” Irvine writes, “Apostle George A. Lee Smith admitted in February, 1847, that he had lextioneered” with all his might to get people to join him.” These “adopted” families would meet for conferences with counsel from Young, Kimball, and social events such as dances.

Within several years, though, adoptions had fallen out of favor. Human nature was a key reason. Like real families, adopted siblings tended to quarrel. Irvine recounts feuds between Lee and other of Young’s adopted children. Other examples include adopted children — grown men — worried they would be subordinate to their “adopted fathers” in the celestial Kingdom. Other adopted “children” believed they could be supported by their “fathers.” Prophet Young, writes Irvine, wryly noted in 1847 “that he hoped the day would come when his adopted children would ‘have to provide temporal blessings for me instead of my boarding from 40 to 50 persons as I do now …’”

In the 1870s, the construction of a temple in St. George, Utah, renewed interest in adoption. New rules were established for the ordinance. One allowed deceased non-member husbands of women members to be adopted. Another allowed members more choice in who they could choose as an adopted father. As a result of the temples being away from Salt Lake City, many members chose deceased apostles to adopt them, because a proxy could be used.

Eventually, the second phase of adoptions failed to satisfy members as well. Many were distressed at the strict rules allowing only one generation beyond baptism to be adopted. Church members who had traced their ancestry much further, writes Irvine, were upset those ancestors would not have the fullness of the Gospel. Others groused that the adoption doctrine was still too complex and difficult to understand.

Adoption ended via — once again — a revelation. In 1894, Church Prophet Wilford Woodruff announced that all children would be “adopted to his (or her) father.” He further said, “We want the Latter-day Saints from this time to trace their genealogies as far as they can, and to be sealed to their fathers and mothers. Have children sealed to their parents, and run the chain as far as you can get it.”
President Woodruff detailed the revelation as additions from the Lord to what Joseph Smith hard originally received. This, Irvine explains, fits with the Mormon concept of continuous revelation, “line upon line, precept upon precept,”

Woodruff’s revelation was very popular, and remains so today. It’s no coincidence that the Mormons’ now iconic interest in genealogy work increased at that time.

There were still kinks to be worked out. Church leaders took pains to assure anxious members that adoption/sealing to a parent was as valid as one to an apostle. Also, the 13,000-plus Saints who had been adopted by Young, Kimball, and the others were a dilemma. As Irvine writes, Church leaders let God sort it out, directing these members to be sealed to their parents while keeping their former “adoptions” in church records.

-- Doug Gibson

This post was originally published at StandardBlogs.