Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Joseph F. Smith (March 1905): If New Revelation Should Be Needed, He would Receive it for the Church

In the March 19, 1905 minutes of the Salt Lake High Council, we find the following summary of the words of Joseph F. Smith:

 

while he had never received from God a revelation on some new doctrine or commandment, to be written and preserved and handed down as a law to the Church, he had been guided from the day of his baptism, by divine influence, and had been aided time and again by the spirit of God in his work in the ministry, and strongly expressed the wish that if, in his day, some new revelation should be needed by the Church, he might be worthy to receive it. (Salt Lake High Council Minutes, March 19, 1905 as found in Michael Harold Paulos, “Under the Gun at the Smoot Hearings: Joseph F. Smith’s Testimony,” in Michael Harold Paulos and Konden Smith Hansen, eds., The Reed Smoot Hearings: The Investigations of a Mormon Senator and the Transformation of an American Religion [Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2021], 205 n. 38)

 

Of course, one fulfillment of Smith’s words would be in October 1918 with the reception of D&C 138.