At a meeting of the held on 28 April 1842, JS delivered a discourse on the gift of healing, the order of the , and related topics. This was the society’s sixth meeting and the third time JS addressed its members. JS took 1 Corinthians chapters 12 and 13 as his text, emphasizing to society members the importance of magnifying whatever callings they individually held, rather than aspiring to office. Responding to circulating criticism that the women leading the organization were acting improperly in administering blessings of healing by , JS spoke at length on the topic, opining that miraculous signs such as healing the sick “should follow all that believe whether male or female” and that “if the sisters should have faith to heal the sick, let all hold their tongues, and let every thing roll on.” Contemplating his own mortality, and echoing a previous assertion that he would make the society a “kingdom of priests,” JS declared that he would deliver over to the society and the church the “ of the kingdom.” Secretary noted in the minutes following JS’s discourse that “the spirit of the Lord was pour’d out in a very powerful manner, never to be forgotten by those present on that interesting occasion.”
It appears contemporaneously took notes of JS’s instructions, as well as the rest of the meeting’s proceedings, on a separate document—no longer extant—and then, presumably shortly after the meeting, made the copy featured here in the minute book.
Derr, Jill Mulvay, Carol Cornwall Madsen, Kate Holbrook, and Matthew J. Grow, eds. The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History. Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2016.
contracted in their views. You must not be contracted, but you must be liberal in your feelings.
Let this teach how to act towards husbands to treat them with mildness and affection. When a man is borne down with trouble— when he is perplex’d; if he can meet a smile, an argument— if he can meet with mildness, it will calm down his soul and soothe his feelings. When the mind is going to despair, it needs a solace.
This Society is to get instruction thro’ the order which God has established— thro’ the medium of those appointed to lead— and I now turn the to you in the name of God and this Society shall rejoice and knowledge and intelligence shall flow down from this time— this is the beginning of better days, to this Society
When you go home never give a cross word, but let kindness, charity and love, crown your works henceforward. Don’t envy sinners— have mercy on them, God will destroy them.— Let your labors be confin’d mostly to those around you in your own circle; as far as knowledge is concerned, it may extend to all the world, but your administrations, should be confin’d to the circle of your immediate acquaintance, and more especially to the members of the Society.
Those to lead the Society, are authoriz’d to appoint to different offices as the circumstances shall require.
If any have a matter to reveal, let it be in your own tongue. Do not indulge too much in the gift of tongues, or the devil will take advantage of the innocent. You may speak in tongues for your comfort but I lay this down for a rule that if any thing is [p. [40]]
In an 1841 letter to members of the church in Kirtland, Ohio, JS’s brother Hyrum Smith used similar language in reference to the temple to be built “in this place [Nauvoo], wherein their dead may be redeemed, and the key of knowledge that unfolds the dispensation of the fullness of times may be turned, and the mysteries of God be unfolded, upon which their salvation and the salvation of the world, and the redemption of their dead depends.” (Hyrum Smith, Letter, Times and Seasons, 15 [1] Nov. 1841, 3:589.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.