Saturday Night Thoughts: A Series of Dissertations on Spiritual, Historical, and Philosophic ThemesWhitney, Orson F. (Orson Ferguson)
Religion
Saturday Night Thoughts: A Series of Dissertations on Spiritual, Historical, and Philosophic Themes
Whitney, Orson F. (Orson Ferguson)
Latter Day Saint churches
10. D. & C. 110:1-4, 11.
11. Heber C. Kimball, one of the Twelve, was placed at the head of
the first foreign mission. He was accompanied by Orson Hyde, Willard
Richards, and other Elders. Subsequently another apostolic mission,
headed by Brigham Young and including a majority of the Twelve, carried
the Gospel to all parts of the British Isles.
12. I was once asked by a gentleman, friendly to the Latter-day Saints,
why they did not co-operate with the millionaire philanthropists who
have endeavored in recent years to place upon arid lands poor Jews
taken out of large cities; but whose efforts, owing to inexperience in
such enterprises, have been more or less futile. My questioner thought
a copartnership between such capitalists and such colonists--one to
furnish the money, the other the knowledge and skill necessary for the
undertaking--might work a splendid result. He added with unction: "You
could stipulate, you know, that every Jew thus colonized should become
a Mormon--and just think how that would build up your Church!"
The intent was serious, but the effect was to amuse. It suggested the
Shakespearean court scene, where the Venetian Duke decides that the Jew
Shylock, as part of his punishment for seeking the life of Antonio,
shall "presently become a Christian." ("Merchant of Venice," Act 4.
Scene 1). As if Christians could be made by judicial decisions or
"Mormons" by contracts for colonization.
13. Talent and genius, brain and brawn, from every part of the world
came in the early immigrations to Salt Lake Valley--farmers, laborers,
tradesmen, mechanics, merchants, manufacturers and business men,
with a liberal sprinkling of artists, musicians, writers and other
professional people. "In their degree the pick and flower of England,"
was the comment passed upon a ship's company of "Mormon" emigrants,
by Charles Dickens, the great English author, in his sketch "The
Uncommercial Traveler," published in 1863.
14. Joshua 21:41
15. Acts 28:22
16. Ezek. 34:14
17. Jer. 16:15; Deut. 33:13-16; Gen. 49:22-26.
18. The work is too vast, too arduous, for any one people to
accomplish, particularly a people who are a mere handful among earth's
teeming millions. God, not man, is doing this work, and He is not
limited in his choice of instruments to his own covenant people. All
men, all nations, knowingly or unknowingly, are playing into his hands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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