Thursday, March 2, 2023

Excerpts from the Journal of Utah Pioneer and Apostle Marriner Wood Merrill

 The following are excerpts from:

 

Utah Pioneer and Apostle Marriner Wood Merrill and His Family: Material Obtained from the Autobiography, Diaries, and Notes of Marriner Wood Merrill and from Record Data and Textual Contributions by members of the family, ed. Melvin Clarence Merrill (1937)

 

September 24. [1890]—We had 187 for endowments today. I went to Salt Lake and met in council with President Woodruff, George Q. Cannon, Joseph F. Smith, F. D. Richards, and Moses Thatcher, where President Woodruff had an article read he had prepared for the press of the country declaring to the world that we did not celebrate plural marriages now in the Church and that he counseled the members of the Church not to break the law in relation to plural marriage. The article was approved by all the brethren present, including myself, which seems the only way to retain the possession of our Temples and continue the ordinance work for the living and dead, which was considered more important than continuing the practice of plural marriages for the present. Came back to Logan same day, arrived at 10:20. (p.127)

 

July 12. [1893]—At a Quorum meeting in the Salt Lake Temple today President Woodruff and President Joseph F. Smith, after Temple ordinance matters were discussed, ruled that the Endowment House and St. George Temple practices should prevail in all the Temples, viz., that those persons male or female, who had not been sealed for themselves could represent the dead in being sealed for them. I demurred against the ruling as I do not think it right, but will adopt it in the Logan Temple on the responsibility of the Presidency. It was moved by President Joseph F. Smith, and carried unanimously that Lorenzo Snow and M. W. Merrill, Presidents of the Salt Lake and Logan Temples, should be the judges and decide whether women in the Church having husbands deceased out of the Church should be sealed to said husbands. (pp. 168-69)

 

November 14. [1894]—Wednesday. I went to Salt Lake today and returned in the evening. Met with the Apostles in our room in the Temple at 10:30 a.m. Discussed the propriety of educating our Elders before sending them on missions, as suggested by John W. Young, who had lived in London the last 3 years. The suggestion was repudiated; it was decided to select the best Elders we could and let them depend on the Lord as formerly. (p. 182)

 

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