“As We Prove Ourselves Ready,” chapter 2 of Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, Volume 3, Boldly, Nobly, and Independent, 1893–1955 (2022)

Chapter 2: “As We Prove Ourselves Ready”

Chapter 2

As We Prove Ourselves Ready

While the Saints in the United States enjoyed a season of goodwill, a missionary named John James faced hecklers in South West England. At one meeting, a man claimed that the Saints in Utah were murderers. At another, someone said the missionaries had come to England to seduce young women and carry them off as plural wives. A short time later, someone else tried to convince a crowd that John and his companions did not believe in the Bible—even though they had been preaching from it during the meeting.

At one gathering, a man interrupted the missionaries to say he had been to Salt Lake City and seen two hundred women herded into a shed, where Brigham Young himself had come to select as many wives as he wanted. John, who had been born and raised in Utah, knew the story was ludicrous. But the crowd refused to listen to his rebuttal.

Most of what these critics claimed to know about the Church, John suspected, came from William Jarman. William and his wife, Maria, had joined the Church in England in the late 1860s. A short time later, they emigrated to New York with their children and Emily Richards, Maria’s apprentice in a dressmaking business—who, unknown to Maria, was pregnant with William’s child. Eventually the family moved to Utah, where William married Emily as a plural wife and started a dry goods business with supplies he apparently stole from his employer in New York.

Life in Zion did not change William’s ways. He proved to be an abusive husband, and both Maria and Emily divorced him. He was also charged with grand larceny, which landed him in prison until the courts dismissed the case. He became disillusioned with the Church, began earning a living lecturing against it, and returned to England. Often, he moved audiences to tears with a heart-wrenching story that accused the Saints of murdering his oldest son, Albert.¹

By the time John James arrived in Great Britain, William had been on the lecture circuit for years. He had published a book criticizing the Church, and his followers sometimes attacked missionaries. In one town, some of William’s followers had hurled stones at the elders, striking one in the eye.²

Despite the danger, John was determined to spread the gospel in Great Britain. “We have met with much opposition from men who have heard Jarman,” he reported to mission leaders. “I think we have ably met them on every hand and intend to continue holding meetings.”³

“Jarman is still lecturing against us and using the foulest language,” apostle Anthon Lund wrote to his wife, Sanie, in Utah. As the newly called president of the European Mission, headquartered in Liverpool, England, Anthon was well aware of the threat William Jarman posed to the work of the Lord. Many missionaries dismissed the lecturer as a madman, but Anthon believed he was a cunning critic whose deceptions were not to be underestimated.⁴

Having joined the Church in Denmark as a boy, Anthon also understood how difficult it was to be a Latter-day Saint in Europe. When facing opposition to their beliefs, Saints in Utah could find assurance and strength in large communities of fellow believers. But on the other side of the Atlantic, eight thousand Latter-day Saints were spread throughout western Europe and Turkey. Many Saints were recent converts attending tiny branches that often depended on missionaries for leadership and moral support. When men like Jarman attacked the Church, these branches were particularly vulnerable.⁵

Anthon had seen the difficulties branches experienced firsthand as he visited Great Britain, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands in the summer and fall of 1893. Even in England, where the Church was strongest, Saints struggled to rally together when they lived far from each other. Sometimes missionaries would stumble upon Saints who had lost contact with the Church for twenty or thirty years.⁶

Elsewhere in Europe, Anthon found similar problems. He learned that a popular pastor was lecturing against the Church in Denmark. In Norway and Sweden, Anthon met missionaries and Church members who sometimes encountered opposition from local governments or other churches. In the Netherlands, Saints struggled because they had almost no Church literature in their language besides the Book of Mormon.

Across the continent, Saints were dedicated to the gospel. But few of the branches were really thriving, and Church membership was dwindling in some areas.⁷

For decades, European Saints had gathered to Utah, where the Church was better established. But the United States government, hoping to halt the spread of plural marriage among the Saints, had shut down the Church’s Perpetual Emigrating Fund in the late 1880s, stopping the Church from loaning money to poor Saints who wanted to move to Utah. More recently, the worldwide economic crisis had thrown many Europeans deeper and deeper into poverty. Some Saints who had been saving money to emigrate were forced to abandon their plans.⁸

United States immigration officials were also strict about whom they let into the country. Since some people still feared that European Saints were coming to Utah to practice plural marriage, Church leaders directed emigrants to cross the Atlantic in small companies to avoid attracting attention. Shortly after Anthon arrived in Europe, in fact, the First Presidency had censured him for sending a group of 138 Saints to Utah. Send no more than 50 emigrants at a time, they cautioned him.⁹

Not having the resources or authority to conduct a large-scale emigration, Anthon rarely spoke publicly about the gathering. But in private he encouraged Saints to emigrate if they could afford it. In late November, after returning to England, he met an elderly woman who had saved enough money to travel to Utah. He advised her to settle in Manti, not far from where his own family lived.

“She could work in the temple,” he thought, “and enjoy her old days.”¹⁰

Meanwhile, Leah Dunford was back in Salt Lake City, writing long letters to John Widtsoe at Harvard University. As promised, she went to see his mother, Anna, a forty-four-year-old widow who lived south of the Salt Lake Temple. During the visit, Anna showed Leah a bookshelf John had made. Surprised by the scholar’s carpentry skills, Leah said, “Good, I will have something to tease John about now.”

“Oh,” Anna said, “you write him, do you?”

“Yes,” Leah said, suddenly worried that Anna might object. But Anna said she was glad John had a friend like Leah.¹¹

Having completed her course in health and fitness, Leah was thinking about continuing her education at a university in the midwestern United States. Her mother had consulted with Joseph F. Smith and George Q. Cannon, though, and believed it best not to send her off alone to a place where the Church was not established.

Disappointed, Leah enrolled instead at a Church-run school in Salt Lake City, taking classes in natural science and chemistry from James E. Talmage, the president of the school and the most respected scholar in the Church. While Leah enjoyed her classes and learned many things from her professors, she envied John’s opportunities at Harvard.

“Oh, I wish I were a man,” she told him. “Men can do anything on earth, but if women think of anything but waiting on men, or cooking their meals, ‘they are out of their sphere.’”

She found immense support from Professor Talmage, who told Leah he wished more young women aspired to teach at Church schools. John also lent his support. “Your determination to devote yourself to the good of others I cannot too highly praise,” he wrote. “I shall give you all the help I can by faith and prayer.”¹²

One Sunday in December 1893, Anna Widtsoe came to Leah’s house for a visit. She spoke about her conversion in Norway and her early experiences in the Church. “We had such a lovely visit,” Leah informed John. “I feel so selfish and unworthy when I hear how much some people have sacrificed for their religion.”

Leah lamented that Saints her age often seemed more interested in making money than in progressing spiritually. To fortify the rising generation, the Church had established the Young Ladies’ and Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations in the 1870s. Young people in these organizations usually met on a weeknight to study the gospel, develop talents and good manners, and enjoy one another’s company. The organizations also published two magazines, the Young Woman’s Journal and the Contributor, and manuals to help youth leaders prepare lessons on the scriptures, Church history, health, science, and literature.¹³

Young men could also look forward to missionary service to help them grow spiritually. But this opportunity was not officially available to women. Young adult women could serve their neighbors through membership in the Relief Society, but Leah’s generation tended to view it as an old-fashioned organization for their mothers. For additional spiritual strength, Leah usually worshipped with her local congregation, fasted regularly, and sought out other opportunities to study the gospel.

On New Year’s Eve, Leah attended a special meeting with the girls in her mother’s Sunday School class in Provo. Zina Young and Mary Isabella Horne, who had both belonged to the Relief Society in Nauvoo, visited the class and spoke of the early days of the Church and Joseph Smith’s prophetic call.

“We had a spiritual feast,” Leah told John. One by one, every girl in the room shared her testimony. “It was the first time I ever bore my testimony or spoke to a crowd on a religious subject,” she wrote. “We all enjoyed it so much.”¹⁴

On the first day of 1894, George Q. Cannon awoke full of gratitude to the Lord for his family’s well-being. “We have food, raiment, and shelter,” he wrote in his journal. “Our houses are comfortable, and we need nothing to add to our physical comfort.”¹⁵

The previous year had been good for the Church. The Saints had dedicated the Salt Lake Temple, the Relief Society and Tabernacle Choir had met with success at the Chicago World’s Fair, and the Church had narrowly avoided financial ruin. In late December, the United States House of Representatives had also granted Utah Territory permission to apply for statehood, bringing the Saints one step closer to a goal they had been chasing since 1849.

“Who could have dared to predict such a thing concerning Utah?” George had written in his journal. “No power but that of the Almighty could have effected this.”¹⁶

As the new year unfolded, however, George and other Church leaders faced new problems. On January 12, the U.S. government returned around $438,000 of what it had confiscated from the Church under the Edmunds-Tucker Act. Unfortunately, the restored funds were not enough to pay off the Church’s loans. And as grateful as Church leaders were for the money, they believed the government had returned less than half of what it had taken from the Saints.¹⁷

With money still scarce, the First Presidency continued to take out loans to fund Church operations. Hoping to create stable jobs and bring revenue to the territory, the Church also invested in several local businesses. Some of the investments helped Saints find work. Other investments were unsuccessful, further adding to the Church’s debt.¹⁸

In early March, Lorenzo Snow, the president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, sought the First Presidency’s advice on how to perform the temple work for his immediate ancestors. He was specifically interested in sealing children to parents who had not embraced the gospel during their lives.¹⁹

The first sealings of children to parents had occurred in Nauvoo. At the time, several Saints whose parents were not members of the Church chose instead to be sealed by adoption to Church leaders. They believed that doing so would ensure them a place in an eternal family and connect the community of Saints together in the next life.

After the Saints arrived in Utah, adoption sealings and child-parent sealings were not performed until the St. George Temple was dedicated in 1877. Since then, many more Saints had chosen to be sealed by adoption into the families of apostles or other Church leaders. In fact, the usual practice of the Church was to not seal a woman to a man who had not accepted the gospel while alive. This meant a Latter-day Saint widow at that time could not be sealed to her deceased husband if he had never joined the Church. The practice could sometimes be painful to bear.²⁰

George had been uncomfortable with adoption sealings for many years. As a young man in Nauvoo, he had been sealed by adoption into his uncle John Taylor’s family, even though his parents had been faithful Church members. Other Church members had also chosen to be sealed to apostles rather than their own faithful Latter-day Saint parents. George now believed this practice had created some clannishness among the Saints. And in 1890, he and his siblings canceled their sealing to the Taylor family and were sealed instead to their own deceased parents in the Logan Temple, affirming the bonds of natural affection within their family.²¹

As the First Presidency discussed the case of Lorenzo’s family, George proposed a possible solution. “Why not have his father and his brothers sealed to his grandfather,” he asked, “and then have his grandfather and his brothers and sisters sealed to their parents, and so on back as far as possible?”

Wilford Woodruff and Joseph F. Smith seemed pleased with George’s proposal. Both men harbored their own concerns about adoption sealings. Yet President Woodruff was not ready to endorse any changes to the practice. George held out hope that the Lord would soon reveal His will on the subject.²²

“The fact is, there has not been much known about this doctrine of adoption,” George observed in his journal. “It is our privilege to know concerning these things, and I trust the Lord will be kind to us and give us knowledge.”²³

Albert Jarman, the son of the Church’s most vocal critic in England, had not been the victim of a grisly murder. In the spring of 1894, he was serving a mission in Great Britain, and his presence was proof that his father was not telling the truth.²⁴

When Albert first arrived in the mission field, he had wanted to confront his father immediately. But mission president Anthon Lund could see that Albert was not ready to face off against someone so sly and shrewd. He sent the young man to London instead, encouraging him to study the gospel and prepare himself against his father’s attacks. In the meantime, President Lund advised, “Write him a nice letter.”²⁵

Albert wrote to his father as soon as he was settled in London. “My dear father,” he began, “I do sincerely hope and pray that you may ere long see the error of telling the people that the Mormons murdered your son.”

“You are now getting along in years, and I feel very much pained when I read and hear people repeat what you have said,” he continued. “I would be pleased to shake a repentant father by the hand, and proud to own and respect you once more.”²⁶

As Albert waited for his father’s reply, he preached and taught in London. “I am studying to the best of my knowledge,” he informed his mother, Maria Barnes. “I am not much of a preacher as yet, but I hope to be one before I come home.”

Albert soon received a short, hurried reply from his father. “You had better come down,” William wrote in a letter. “I shall be pleased to see you.”

Knowing how violent William could be, Maria was anxious for her son. But Albert told her not to worry about his father harming him. “He won’t have the power,” Albert reassured her. Mostly, he was eager to speak with William or any other relatives he had in England.

“I want to be able to bear my testimony to them,” he wrote, “if God will so desire me to do.”²⁷

Back in Salt Lake City, Wilford Woodruff announced to his counselors and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles that he had received a revelation on the law of adoption. “I have felt we are too strict in regard to some of our temple ordinances,” he declared on the eve of the April 1894 general conference. “This is especially the case in regard to husbands and parents who are dead.”

“The Lord has told me that it is right for children to be sealed to their parents, and they to their parents just as far back as we can possibly obtain the records,” he continued. “It is also right for wives whose husbands never heard the gospel to be sealed to those husbands.”

President Woodruff believed they still had much to learn about temple ordinances. “God will make it known,” he assured them, “as we prove ourselves ready to receive it.”²⁸

The following Sunday, at general conference, President Woodruff asked George Q. Cannon to read a passage from section 128 of the Doctrine and Covenants to the congregation. In the passage, Joseph Smith spoke of Elijah turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers in the last days. “The earth will be smitten with a curse,” the prophet Joseph had declared, “unless there is a welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children.”²⁹

President Woodruff then returned to the stand. “We have not got through revelation,” he declared. “We have not got through the work of God.” He spoke of how Brigham Young had carried on Joseph Smith’s work of building temples and organizing temple ordinances. “But he did not receive all the revelations that belong to this work,” President Woodruff reminded the congregation. “Neither did President Taylor, nor has Wilford Woodruff. There will be no end to this work until it is perfected.”

After noting that the Saints had acted according to all the light and knowledge they had received, President Woodruff explained that he and other Church leaders had long believed the Lord had more to reveal about temple work. “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,” he declared. “Have children sealed to their parents, and run their chain through as far as you can get it.”

He also announced an end to the policy that prevented a woman from being sealed to a husband who had died without receiving the gospel. “Many a woman’s heart has ached because of this,” he said. “Why deprive a woman of being sealed to her husband because he never heard the gospel? What do any of us know with regard to him? Will he not hear the gospel and embrace it in the spirit world?”

He reminded the Saints of Joseph Smith’s vision of his brother Alvin in the Kirtland Temple. “All who have died without a knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry,” the Lord had taught, “shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom.”

“So shall it be with your fathers,” President Woodruff said of those in the spirit world. “There will be very few, if any, who will not accept the gospel.”

Before closing his sermon, he urged the Saints to ponder his words—and seek out their kindred dead. “Brethren and sisters,” he said, “let us go on with our records, fill them up righteously before the Lord, and carry out this principle, and the blessings of God will attend us, and those who are redeemed will bless us in days to come.”³⁰