Letters Exhibiting the Most Prominent Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day SaintsSpencer, Orson
Religion
Letters Exhibiting the Most Prominent Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Spencer, Orson
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- Doctrines; Latter Day Saint churches -- Doctrines
Believing as we do, that these are the last days, and that signal
matters await this generation; and that the harvest must be gathered
soon, if at all, you must not marvel if we do not all at once become
rich, and build large houses, and enclose productive farms. If riches
were our object, we might readily gratify the most ambitious grasp.
We possess every facility for being rich, but we long to behold the
beauty of the Lord, and inquire in his holy temple. The place of his
sanctuary, which we greatly desire to beautify, is a site of surpassing
natural beauty. Upon it stands the incomplete structure of a temple;
in dimensions, a little over one hundred and twenty-eight feet long,
by eighty-eight feet wide, to be elevated in height a little under
sixty feet; the walls are made of a well-wrought handsome stone. The
inhabitants are very industrious, being occupied in agriculture and the
various mechanical arts.
Our people are mostly the working class of the community, from the
United States, and Great Britain and her Provinces. They are a very
intelligent people, especially so far as common sense and a general
knowledge of men and things are concerned.
Our Elders are versed in religious polemics, from discussions in the
pulpit, stage, bar-room, canal, and steam-boat, of the fireside and
highway side: and, perhaps, you are not aware that many, very many, are
from the most enlightened portion of New England; men that have been
rocked in the cradle of orthodoxy and liberty; accustomed to fatigue,
privation, and opposition; and knowing that their religion has more
light and truth, and the power of the Holy Ghost to support it, than
any other that has existed since the days of the apostles, they are
prepared to endure all things with the assurance that their reward is
great in heaven.
You wish to know the general character of the people. There is probably
less profanity, drunkenness, lewdness, theft, fighting, gambling, and
tavern-haunting, than in any other city of the same magnitude.
But I must close my answer to your many and minute inquiries, having
already protracted them beyond my original design. Your letter contains
many important inquiries, similar indeed to what I have received from
other distinguished friends from different parts of the Union. You will
accept my apology for not answering at an earlier date; and though I
design this epistle to be a general answer to all similar inquiries,
yet shall hereafter readily reciprocate all private communications in
the usual method of friendship and affection.
Most sincerely and truly yours,
ORSON SPENCER.
LETTER II.
IMMEDIATE REVELATION.
_Liverpool, May_ 15, 1847.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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