Yvette Running Horse Collin and the Importance of Avoiding the "Genetic Fallacy"

  

With regard to scientific research on this subject, it is important to note that the Mormon Church has put some emphasis and financial backing toward deciphering the history of the horse in the Americas. As the Book of Mormon describes horses in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus, critics have long used the fact that "there were no horses in the Americas" as proof that their doctrine is not valid. However, just because a particular group has an interest in a topic and wishes to support research being done in the area does not mean that their scientific findings are necessarily biased, especially when independent laboratories are used. (Yvette Running Horse Collin, “The Relationship Between The Indigenous Peoples of the Americas and the Horse: Deconstructing a Eurocentric Myth” [PhD Thesis; University of Alaska Fairbanks, May 2017], 138 n. 371, emphasis in bold added)

 

Emma Marr Petersen (1893-1975) (Wife of Mark E. Petersen) Teaching Baptismal Regeneration

In a book for a young audience to understand the importance of baptism, we read the following fictional dialogue between two kids who are about to be baptized and their parents:

 

Sister Jensen had not said much during the evening, but when prayer was spoken she joined in the conversation.

 

“When Jesus was on earth,” she said, “he prayed to his Father very often. He also taught the people to pray. As he did so, he told them to ask the Lord to forgive them of the wrong things they did.

 

“This refers to baptism too,” she said. “Daddy, tell the boys about forgiveness of sin.”

 

“I will be glad to,” he said. “It surely is a part of baptism.

 

“When older people join the Church, they also must learn to live right. They may have many habits which are not good, just as some children do. They must change them, and begin living right.

 

“They know that when they sin they displease God. They ask his forgiveness. Forgiveness means that the Lord will not hold our sins against us if we stop doing the things that are wrong.

 

“When an older person joins the Church, he is baptized just like you boys will be, and then, the Lord forgives him of his sins, if he stops doing wrong. It is in baptism that God grants this forgiveness. That is why it is spoken of as baptism for the remission of sins.

 

“We must be clean and free from sin when joining the Church, for no unclean person can come into God’s house.

 

“We have done things that are wrong, and I guess we will do more in the future. But we must always try to do better.

 

“Now you boys think of the bad habits you may have, and then try to overcome them before you are baptized, so that you will be forgiven by the Lord as you come out of the water.” (Emma Marr Petersen, About Baptism: A Story of the Meaning and Purpose of Baptism [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, Inc., 1957], 56-57, emphasis added)

 

 

“There are two parts to baptism. One is called baptism in water, and that is that we told you about last week. The other is called baptism of the Spirit.

 

“Listen carefully while I explain this, as it is very important. When we repent of our sins, we receive forgiveness of them in the waters of baptism. That makes us clean in the sight of God.

 

“He has told us that if we do what is right our bodies may be a dwelling place for his Spirit, which really comes upon us.

 

“But he says that his Spirit will not enter an unclean tabernacle or house. He speaks of our bodies as tabernacles, or dwelling places for his Holy Spirit.

 

“As we are cleaned of sin in the waters of baptism, we are made ready to receive his Spirit.

 

“The way we receive his Holy Spirit is that the elders of the Church lay their hands upon our heads, after we are baptized in water, and bless us and say, ‘Receive the Holy Ghost.’ (Ibid., 61, emphasis added)

 

This is a teaching found in her other writings:

 

Forgiveness of sins comes by baptism, which also admits us into his Church as members. (Emma Marr Petersen, The Church that Jesus Christ Built [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft Inc., 1971], 6)

 

 

The Lord taught that baptism is essential to salvation. He told Nicodemus, a Jew who came to him at night during the Lord’s mortal ministry, that without it, a person cannot even see the kingdom of heaven. (Emma Marr Petersen, The Prophet's Story For Young People [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, Inc., 1973], 19)

 

[Speaking of those early Saints who were baptized prior to April 6, 1830]:

 

Although a number had been baptized prior to this time, they were now baptized again, this time to become members of the Church. Their first baptisms showed an acceptance of the teachings of Joseph, and provided for them the remission of sins. They could not be baptized into the Church then because it had not yet been organized. Now that the Church was organized they were baptized again — this time into the Church. (Ibid., 61, emphasis added)

 

Further Reading:

Baptism Does Cleanse Us from Our Sins

Miguel Tinoco (LDS): Isaiah 2:2 had a Partial Fulfillment with the Salt Lake Temple, but is Awaiting a Complete Future Fulfillment

Commenting on Isa 2:2:

 

This prophecy unfolded in part when Brigham Young, leading the remnant of the Saints in a new exodus to the West, attempted to established Zion in the tops of the mountains after the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith—fulfilling a shadow of that vision. Yet the full charge of the Servant of the latter days is greater still. His commission is to complete and set in order the house of God, to lift it as an ensign to the nations, and to arrange the covenant inheritance of Israel according to divine pattern. (Miguel Tinoco, Behold My Servant: Isaiah’s Vision of Vindication, Restoration, and the Gathering of Israel [Magnolia Aether, 2025],95)

 

Brant A. Gardner on Alma 9:27 and the Importance of Water Baptism

  

Alma 9:27

 

27 And behold, he cometh to redeem those who will be baptized unto repentance, through faith on his name.

 

The ordinance of baptism is not explicitly an important aspect of Nephite religion until Alma₁. By the time of Alma₂, the ordinance has become to definitive that the Messiah enters mortality at least partially to be baptized. What this means in terms of Book of Mormon doctrine is that the ordinance of baptism has completely supplanted the Jewish rite of animal sacrifice for atonement. Alma’s address is a milestone in showing the movement away from the sacrificial cult of Israel and toward a more spiritualized worship that is reminiscent of Christianity and even of Israel after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple by the Romans. It seems probable that separation from both the physical temple in Jerusalem and from the Levite priestly lineage led to responses that were similar among both the Old World Christians the pre-Christian Nephites in the New World. Both instances shifted religion from the communal to the individual.

 

For example, Alma states unequivocally that the Atoning Messiah is coming to “redeem those who will be baptized until repentance.” There is absolutely no indication of any other required sacrifice. The religion has been transformed into a spiritual relationship with Yahweh rather than a communal relationship maintained by animal sacrifice. (Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols. [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007], 4:161)

 

Heber J. Grant Recording in his Journal (August 14, 1925) that Wallace Smith (son of William Smith) Was Ignorant of the Book of Mormon

  

One of the letters I dictated to the dictaphone this morning was to my cousin, Wallace Smith, the son of William Smith who recently died at Independence. I sent him a copy of the Book of Mormon. He claimed to be shocked to receive a Book of Mormon and said that nothing more than the Bible was needed etc. (Heber J. Grant, Journal, August 14, 1925, in The Diaries of Heber J. Grant, 1880-1845 Abridged, comp. D. Michael Quinn [Digital Edition; Salt Lake City, 2015])

 

Marilyn McCord Adams (2010) on Anselm (d. 1109) vs. the Immaculate Conception

  

In Cur Deus Homo, Anselm’s focus is on Christ. He spends the whole first book arguing that divine purposes for Adam’s race cannot be fulfilled without a God-man. In the second book, Anselm turns to further questions about what else would have to be true of the God-man to fulfill the soteriological job Anselm has designed for Him. Adam’s race can render to God what it owes, its debt can be paid with justice, only if satisfaction is made by a member of Adam’s family. But Christ will not have any capital with which to pay the debt, if He is personally mired in the disabilities and liabilities that make it impossible for other members of Adam’s race any longer to render to God what they owe. The purity and defilement calculus, the seminal transmission theory lurk in the background as Boso (Anselm’s interlocutor) asks:

 

[H]ow did God assume from the sinful mass—i.e., from the human race, which was completely contaminated by sin—a sinless human nature (as something unleavened from something leavened)? For although the conception of this man was clean and free from the sin of carnal delight, nevertheless the virgin from whom He was assumed was conceived in iniquities, and her mother conceived her in sins; and this virgin was born with original sin, since she sinned in Adam in whom all have sinned. (Cur Deus Homo II.16; Schmitt II.116,16–24)

 

Contamination is catching. The Blessed Virgin Mary was seminally propagated and would have become contaminated by her parents. Even if Christ were not seminally propagated, even if the Blessed Virgin Mary were Christ’s only human parent, she would be infected and Christ would have caught it from her.

 

The challenge provokes Anselm to thought-experiments that bear the fruit of two different, to his mind, independently adequate responses. Neither focuses on, but both bear on the question of the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Cur Deus Homo account contends that by virtue of being a God-man, Christ is pure through Himself. It appeals to the excellence of Christ’s saving work to explain how His humanity was not assumed from tainted forebears. Christ’s obedience to death was so pleasing to the Godhead that it is efficacious, not only for the then present but also future members of Adam’s race; it reaches backward to cleanse the elect who came before Him during their ante mortem careers. Anselm does not elaborate exactly when or from what they are cleansed, and so does not itemize the respects in which the Blessed Virgin Mary would have been immaculate. But the logic of the argument would require the elect to be free of whatever the offspring would have “caught” from them in the course of their biological derivation.

 

Anselm observes that original sin is a topic in its own right, and returns to give it focused attention in De conceptu virginali et de originali peccato. There Anselm makes three points that loom large in later debates about the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. First, Anselm insists that nothing merely material, but only the soul can be the subject of sin. God made rational creatures with reason and will and endowed their wills with a separable affectio iustitiae and freedom (the power to preserve justice). Creatures are unable to endow themselves with justice. Unlike God, if they are just, they are just through another (per aliud). They owe their justice to God, both in the sense of having it from God as the source, and in the sense of being obliged to God to preserve uprightness of will for its own sake. For Anselm sin is the failure to preserve justice, and original sin is the lack of required justice. Given the commonly held mediated animation theory—that what is seminally produced in the mother is not immediately animated (infused with a soul) but only after the material is shaped into an organic body (40–46 days after conception for males, 80 days for females)—Anselm concludes that original sin cannot begin at conception but only at animation. Because the parents produce only the flesh and soul, original sin cannot be seminally transmitted in conception itself. (De conceptu virginali et de originali peccato, chs. 1–4; Schmitt II.140–145; ch. 7; Schmitt

II.147–149)

 

Second, if the seminal transmission theory was a starting point for Boso’s question in Cur Deus Homo, Anselm’s definition of original sin and relocation of its subject brings him to refocus on the juridical or quasi-legal explanation of its inheritance. In De conceptu virginali, Anselm distinguishes between those of Adam’s offspring whose propagation lies, broadly speaking, within the scope of natural human powers and the parents’ will to exercise them, from those whose propagation lies outside the scope of natural human reproductive powers. Paradigmatic of the former are human beings begotten the normal way by bisexual intercourse. Eve is an obvious example of the latter, since she was made from Adam’s rib. Anselm explicitly notes that biblical examples of children from over-age parents (e.g., Isaac from Abraham and Sarah, John the Baptist from Zechariah and Elizabeth) belong in the first category, because they are begotten by the will of their parents and through miraculously restored natural reproductive powers.(Ibid., ch. 16; Schmitt II.157–158) Anselm then hypothesizes that if God determined that if Adam did not sin, Adam’s natural offspring would be reproduced in the condition in which Adam himself was created; but if Adam sinned, Adam’s natural offspring would be reproduced in the condition into which Adam fell. Here condition includes both legal and concrete dimensions; in the latter case of fallen humanity it ranges over the quasi-legal obligation to have justice and the liability to punishment for not having it, as well as the concrete punishments—psycho-physical dysfunction, psycho-spiritual disorder, physical vulnerability and mortality—themselves. Biological descent is relevant, not because the parents’ biological acts somehow cause original sin in the offspring, but because it makes the offspring members of the class to whom the laws apply.

 

Christ’s human nature is excepted precisely because His reproduction was not natural in the relevant sense, but virginal. (Ibid., chs. 10–13; Schmitt II.151–155) In De conceptu virginali, ch. 18 Anselm explicitly notes that on this juridical or quasi-legal explanation of Christ’s purity can be secured quite independently of whether or not his mother was pure. It is not necessity but propriety that drives the conclusion of Marian purity. In a statement much quoted in later debates (and this is the third salient point in the treatise), Anselm exclaims, “it was fitting that the Virgin be beautified with a purity than which a greater cannot be conceived except for God’s,” because “the Son was naturally one and the same common Son of God the Father and of the Virgin.” (Ibid., chs. 18–19; Schmitt II.159–160) Potuit, decuit, fecit, as the later slogan would say. What Anselm does not observe is how the soteriological statutes to God not open any loophole that would except Mary from the common inheritance of Adam’s race, because traditional Marian infancy narratives model her conception on that of John the Baptist—another case of voluntary use of miraculously restored natural powers. (Marilyn McCord Adams, “The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary: A Thought-Experiment in Medieval Philosophical Theology,” Harvard Theological Review 103, no. 2 [April 2010]: 135-37)

 

Heber J. Grant's Journal Entires for September 30 and October 1, 1890 and the Reception of the Manifeso (Official Declaration 1) Among Church Leaders

  

September 30, 1890:

 

At ten attended a meeting the Presidents office opposite the Gardo House of the Utah Sugar Co. I remained in the meeting until 1.50 and then went to lunch. At 2 P.M. attended a meeting of the Apostles in the Gardo House. There were present President Lorenzo Snow, Franklin D. Richards, Moses Thatcher, Francis M. Lyman, Jno. Henry Smith, Heber J. Grant, Jno. W. Taylor, and Abraham H. Cannon.

 

President Snow spoke of the Manifesto that had recently been published by Prest. Woodruff and said that he approved of it fully. Said that even had he not been able to approve of it that he should not have opposed it as he did not feel that he would be justified in setting up his opinions in opposition to the Presidency. He felt that in case there was anything advanced that he was not able to see that he should remain still until such time as he could see it. He said there would be no loss to those who were true and faithful on account of their not being able to take more than one wife at the Present time. He said that some of the very best of men had passed away from this life when they were on missions who had not had any wife named Lorenzo Barnes as one of this kind. He said that he was sure that brother Barnes would have wives in the life to come. There was no blessing that would be denied him.

 

He felt that the Manifesto would turn the hearts of many honest hearted people to a feeling of friendship and respect for us. While our enemies might do us more injury in the future, if possible, than in the past he was sure good would result from the publication of the Manifesto. I can see the good of the Manifesto clearly and am thankful for it. He had been glad that in the days of Joseph Smith that he had been blessed so that he could see and approve of his teachings, many of which were of such a nature that some of the saints turned away from the truth on account of them. When the knowledge which we have of the things of God is compared with that of the world we feel that our knowledge is immense, but when we compare what we know to the knowledge of God we feel that we know really nothing. Felt that we should be careful and faithful. In case we are successful in reaching an exaltation we would be able to save our wayward wives and children.

 

He referred to many cases in the past history of the Church where laws had been suspended for a time. He said we had not given up plural marriage and we should not and could not do so, but in the providence of God we were for the present relieved on account of the actions of our enemies from the entering into that relation.

 

FRANKLIN D. RICHARDS. Said that those among the people who had the spirit of revelation would approve of the Manifesto. Said that it was a very momentous affair and that he was convinced that God was with Prest. Woodruff when he was preparing the Manifesto for publication. Many will reject it and feel that the Church is now all wrong. Some will say that Jno. Sharp was condemned for the very thing that the President is now telling the saints to do. He referred to many cases where laws had been suspended. He named among the others the suspension of the law of baptism in cases where wives and children had received the testimony of the gospel but their husbands and fathers were opposed to their being baptised. He had happened into the Gardo house the day Prest. Woodruff was dictating the Manifesto and upon asking for him was told by Prest. Cannon that he was in the other room and was writing something very important and was not to be disturbed. When he came out saw him and his face shone with pleasure and he seemed very much pleased and contented. I felt by the inspirations of the spirit to me that Prest. Woodruff had been inspired in what he had been writing. When the Manifesto was read I felt that it was the right thing and that it had been given at the right time. I feel that this is the work of the Lord. It is all right if the Government shall take all of our property, real and personal.

 

Felt to endorse the sentiments of President Snow that in case we were faithful and secured an exaltation that we would be able to bring those of our families who had been wayward back into an exaltation.

 

JOHN W. TAYLOR, Said that when he had read the Manifesto he felt “damn it”. He said that he remembered the Revelation that Prest. Woodruff had had from the Lord which was read to us some time ago in which He told us that He would sustain us in carrying our the law of plural marriage. He also remembered finding among his father's papers the word of the Lord to him in which the Lord said that plural marriage was one of His eternal laws and that He had established it, that man had not done so and that He would sustain and uphold his saints in carrying it out. He said that this was given to his father in answer to prayer in which he had asked the Lord if it would not be right under the circumstances to discontinue plural marriages.

 

I know that the Lord has given this manifesto to Prest. Woodruff and He can take it away when the time comes or he can give it again. I feel all right now and am glad that I do.

 

MOSES THATCHER, Said that a day or so before the Manifesto was given that he was in the city and that Prest. Woodruff had said to him that he did not wish him to go away as there would be an important meeting and he had intended to telegraph for him to come to the city. Prest. Woodruff felt great anxiety regarding the false statements that were being published about us by the Utah Commission and Government and he felt that great trouble was coming unless something was done to off set their publications. Felt that Congress would enact some law before they adjourned.

 

Brother Thatcher said that he felt that the Manifesto had come by the inspiration of the Spirit to Prest. Woodruff and that it was all right with him. He was sure that it would do us great good as there would be thousands on thousands of upright and honest men in this land who would now feel that we were not an unlawful and treasonable set of people. Felt that God would hasten His work and that perhaps this very action may be the thing that will cause us as a quorum to be separated in the near future. He referred to the remarks of Prest. Snow when we had been together at our other meetings wherein he said that he wanted us to be sure and come to those meetings of the Apostles as the day may come when we will not have the privilege of meetings of this kind. The Manifesto would make our enemies madder than ever and they would do all in their power to bring trouble upon us, but actions taken against us now that we had taken the position that we had would be without excuse. It is necessary that this Nation shall be without excuse before the Lord will deal with them. I have known for years that our people would go to Mexico in great numbers. God will deal out to this Nation the measure they deal out to us. The battle axe of the Lord, the Lamanites, will have a hand in humbling this nation. He endorsed the statements of Prest. Snow that no one would lose any of the blessings of the Lord on account of their passing from this life before they had entered into plural marriage or any of the other laws in case such persons were really faithful and in their hearts intended to keep all of the laws of the Lord. He referred to the case of Feramorz Young. Said that he had had a testimony from the Lord that Plural marriage was true. That he was engaged to Miss Hattie Hooper and that she, he feared, did not have faith in that doctrine and that he had recorded in his journal that he should lay his love on the alter of Sacrifice sooner than not fulfill this law, and yet he had died with no wife. Since his death a very nice young lady died and she had appeared to her friends and asked that she be sealed to Fera. Young and the matter had been attended to. Another young lady of gentile parents who had never been in the Church but who had lived in the world came to a gentile woman in Salt Lake City and plead with her to go to Fera. Young’s mother and have the ordinances attended to for her and have her sealed to Fera.

 

This young lady had died in the world with no knowledge of the gospel so far as we had any way of learning. She had come three times to the gentile woman in this city and this woman finally went to Fera’s mother and told her of the visitation and said that she did not believe a word in what the young woman had said to her, but she had finally been under the necessity of promising her that she would go to Fera’s mother and so she had done so. The ordinances were performed for her and she had been sealed there was not the least danger than any one who was faithful would be deprived of any single blessing that they had earned, no matter if they were called away from this life before they had fulfilled all of the laws of the Lord.

 

FRANCIS M. LYMAN, said that he had endorsed the Manifesto fully when he first heard it. He said that it had always been a matter of great satisfaction to him that he had never had the least difficulty up to the present time to fully endorse all of the doctrines that had been advanced by the President of the Church from the days of the Prophet Joseph down to the present time and he hoped that he should never have any doubt regarding matters which might be advanced in the future. All that had advanced had come to him as the word of the Lord and he had found not the slightest difficulty in accepting the same. He did not feel that we had surrendered the least principle by the action that had been taken by Prest. Woodruff in publishing the Manifesto . We had refused to allow marriages in the United States and he could not see the least reason why we should not have the benefit in case there was any of publishing this fact to the world. He referred to his labors since our last meeting with brothers Richards, Smith, Cannon, Taylor and Grant of our quorum and brothers Reynolds, Gates and Roberts of the Seventies and paid each of them a tribute, testifying to the inspirations of the Lord attending them in their labors among the people.

 

After the remarks of brother Lyman our meeting adjourned to meet at ten tomorrow. We were to come together fasting tomorrow.

 

I have enjoyed the meeting today very much indeed. The brethren have been blessed in their remarks. (Heber J. Grant, Journal, September 30, 1890, in The Diaries of Heber J. Grant, 1880-1845 Abridged, comp. D. Michael Quinn [Digital Edition; Salt Lake City, 2015])

 

 

October 1, 1890:

 

This morning I wrote a letter to Augusta. I also wrote up my journal for Monday and most of that for yesterday. I did not have time to write all the items before it was time for me to attend the meeting of the Apostles viz. 10 A.M.

 

JOHN HENRY SMITH, said that the Manifesto had disturbed his feelings very much, but he had felt that he had better say nothing about it until he was with his brethren. He had many times felt that in case we as a people had taken the heroic stand and maintained all of the principles of our faith that our troubles would have been over by this time. He had often wondered if we as a people were worthy of the principle of plural marraig and when he had looked at the actions of men living in the practice of this principle he did not much wonder that the Lord had for the present restrained us in its practice. The Governor of our territory had already suggested that we must now put away all of our wives other than the first one. He said that the only thing that would restrain him from living with all of his wives would be that he was in the Pen. and could not do so, that is such would be his course unless there was a change in his present make up. He confessed that he was somewhat at sea regarding the Manifesto as he had had no impressions on the subject. He desired to aid in the preaching of the gospel and in building up the kingdom. He had been absolutely happy in this room some months ago when Prest. Woodruff read to us a revelation from the Lord telling us that plural marriage was a principle that He had revealed and that he would sustain us in obeying His law. He regretted that he did not have the same happy and contented feeling regarding the Manifesto. My fears are that the Manifesto will do us as a people more harm than good. He was willing to sustain the prest. in issuing the Manifesto although he was a little at sea as to the wisdom of its having been issued.

 

HEBER J. GRANT, said that he felt easy and happy over the Manifesto and felt that it was the right thing at the right time and that there was not the least reason why such a document should not be issued as we had already come to the decision that we as the leaders of the people should not allow any more persons to be married in the United States, and that in case a person wished a second or third wife that he must go out of the United States and get her and that after he had been married that he should not bring her in to this country. Prest. Woodruff had simply told the world what we had been doing and if there were any advantages to secure by the publication of the Manifesto I feel that we should have them.

 

Had no idea that the publication of the Manifesto would in the least relieve us from persecution in the future, but felt as some of the brethren had expressed themselves yesterday that it might be the very thing that would bring greater trouble on us and might be the cause of separating our Quorum so that we would not have the privilege of meeting as we are now doing.

 

Some say that in case this action had been taken years ago that the Nation would have allowed those then in plural marriage to continue to live with their wives and raise families, but in case that had been done the question was how could the words of the Prophet Joseph been fulfilled where in he had said that our rights and liberties should be taken from us and that the Constitution of our country should be trampled on. Things come around in their proper time and season.

 

Brother Jno. W. Taylor was asked to speak, but said that as he had expressed his opinion yesterday that he had nothing more that he cared to say.

 

ANTHON H. LUND, said that he felt all right about the Manifesto. He had come to meet Prest. Cannon soon after it had been issued and had heard from him the way in which the matter had impressed the mind of our President. He gave an account of a celebration that had been held at Ephraim on the 15th. ult. It had been held in honor of the 40th anniversary of the organization of the First Branch of the Church in Scandinavia.

 

They had had a very remarkable time. There were present the First Woman baptized, the First Elder ordained and the first of several other things. He had enjoyed the celebration very much indeed, but did not wish his brethren of the Apostles to feel that those of the saints who had come to this land from Scandinavia were any dearer to him than any of the other saints. He loved the people of the Lord without regard to what land they had come from. There had been representatives from nearly every Stake in the Church where there were any of the Scandinavians living.

 

ABRAHAM H. CANNON, said that the Manifesto had not in the lest disturbed him, as he had recognized in the publication simply the announcement to the world of what we were already doing. He could not help admiring Daniel who would supplicate the Lord even in the face of the law which said that he would have to suffer in case he did so, but at the same time he had felt that it required as much of the heroic in the nature of man to make a statement similar to the Manifesto as to suffer. He felt that many who had not gone to the Pen. had suffered as much and in some cases more than those who had. Many men would really prefer to go to the Pen. than to be running around on the Underground but on account of the suffering that would come to their wives in case they were to come into court they had kept away. He felt that the Lord had suggested to Prest. Woodruff to publish the Manifesto and that was sufficient for him. He felt that those who would not be on hand to sustain the Manifesto were those who had not been on hand to do their duties in the Church in the past. The faithful saints would sustain the Manifesto. Felt that the Lord would not ask us to do that that would not be for our best good. When I hear the remarks of the brethren regarding the troubles that may come on us as a quorum and on the saints my only fear is that I may not have sufficient strength to stand. I feel to give my approval to the Manifesto issued.

 

MOSES THATCHER, asked the question if it would be wisdom on our part to fly in the face of the law and answered, no. He related a conversation between Prest. Budge and brother Jno. Nicholson in which brother N. had said that he felt that we should come out as a people and stand up for the principles of our faith and take the consequences. Prest. Budge took the position that he thought that it was the better course for him under the circumstances to visit his folks without any one knowing that he did so. He said that the reason he did not go openly was that he was afraid to do so. He asked brother Nicholson why he did not visit his folks openly and was answered that he did not dare to for fear of a second term in the Pen. Brother Budge told him that if his position was the right one that he should stand up for Plural marriage and take the second term, that if it was the right thing to do for the people it was the right thing for him as an individual. This practical application had the effect of modifying the opinions of Brother N. to quite an extent. Moses felt that in the past that State lines had given us some relief, but that they would fade away and that it wold be necessary for us to go to Mexico and Central America in great numbers and that there we would form alliances with the battle axe of the Lord and that they would aid us in eventually sustaining and upholding the Constitution of this country. We must be the ones according to the predictions of the Prophet Joseph to rescue the Constitution when it hang as it were by a thread. Those men who have kept all of the commandments of the Lord will be the ones who will go to Mexico and as they have been faithful they will be the proper persons to accomplish the mighty work that I believe is to be done in that section of the country. The principle of plural marriage is as sacred to me today as it ever was, and I do not feel that we have abrogated any principle of our faith on account of the publication of the Manifesto.

 

LORENZO SNOW said that he had been much pleased with the remarks of the brethren. He thought that each and every case should stand on its own merits. It would be wise in some cases for men to take their wives out of the country where they could have more children and in other cases it would be the part of wisdom for them not to do so but to remain here and give care to the education of those that they now had. ...

 

The question was asked of Prest. Snow by me as to how the Son of God was begotten and he answered that he was begotten just the same as you and I were or as our sons are. All of the brethren who said anything endorsed this doctrine. ...

 

The matter of those having negro blood in their veins not being able to get the Priesthood unless it was a very limited proportion was chatted on. Prest. Snow remarked that the killing by Cain of Abel was more than a simple murder, as Cain was aware of the fact that the spirits who would have come to this world through the lineage of Abel would be deprived of that privilege on account of his act. Abel was a prince of Spirits and Cain the same and the spirits that Cain was Prince over agreed to take on themselves the sin that he had committed and to come on this earth with colored skins. There would be no redemption for them and they could not secure the Priesthood until all of those spirits that had been deprived of coming through Abel had been given tabernacles. This statement of the condition of the negro had been made to him by Prest. Young about the time he was made an Apostle. He was thankful that there was no statement that the Negro should never have the Priesthood and that there would never be a day of redemption for him. He referred to the troubles that we often have to pass through and said there was one thing that we should be thankful for and that was that no matter what we had to pass through that there would always be a man at the head of the Church that would have the keys and who could and would give us the light as he would get the mind of the Lord. (Heber J. Grant, Journal, October 1, 1890, in The Diaries of Heber J. Grant, 1880-1845 Abridged, comp. D. Michael Quinn [Digital Edition; Salt Lake City, 2015])