Saturday, December 2, 2023

C. W. Wandell's Report of Trolling the Strangites with a Fake Revelation

  

C. W. Wandell wrote a revelation purporting to come from the Lord through J. J. Strang, to see what effect it would have upon the strangites. He sent it to Jehiel Savage, who took the article, went on to the stand, read it to the people and bore testimony that he knew it was from the Lord.

 

Brother Wandell seeing it was having an evil effect upon the followers of Strang, came out and acknowledged that he was the author of the article, that the Lord had nothing to do with it, and that Strang never saw it.

 

Brother Wandell found it unprofitable and dangerous business to use the name of the Lord falsely, that it was wrong and produced evil among the children of men; as was the case with William E. McLellan who undertook to imitate one of the Revelations of Jesus Christ and failed in the attempt, and although this article of brother Wandell’s showed that Savage and the followers of Strang, who had forsaken the truth, were more ready to receive fables than truth and bear testimony that they were of the Lord; yet no man should use this means to produce such an effect. (Brigham Young, March 6, 1846, in Manuscript History of Brigham Young, 1846-1847, comp. Elden J. Watson [Salt Lake City: Elden J. Watson, 1971], 68)

 

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