O Susan Then I Thought of Thee

Lately I've been reading the journals of Wilford Woodruff, and on 20 February 1845 he had the opportunity to visit the grave of Elder Lorenzo D. Barnes (1812-1842), who had died on 20 December 1842 of illness while on his mission in England. In the course of relating the experience, Woodruff transcribes a few love poems exchanged between Lorenzo Barnes and a young woman named Susan Conrad. The last of these poems, written to Conrad by Barnes from England sometime in 1842, is especially touching, and as I cannot find a transcription of it elsewhere online, I here offer it:

When I bade my home farewell
On Brittons shore far hence to dwell
When I watched by evening light
My native shores face from my sight
O! Susan then I thought of thee.

When I ploughed the raging sea
Whose Billows rolled Continually
When on high our Ship was bourn
Or fiercely driven by winters storm
When roaring surges dashed oer me
O Susan then I thought of thee.

When I gazed with eager eyes
On Britons Shores before me rise
I viewed her mountains capted with snow
While chilling winds did round me blow
Till late our haven hove in view
O Susan then I thought of you.

When on Europes Shores I stood
And gazed far oer old oceans flood
I thought of all I'd left behind
My Parents dear And friends so kind
I thought of their [-] company
But Susan most I thought of thee.

When I the streets of towns parade
And gaze upon proud Britons maids
With sparkling eyes and silken hair
With rosy checks and bosoms fair
Methinks they have no chairmes for me
For Susan yet I think on thee.

When wafted by the power of steam
Through landscapes fair and meadows green
Through wide spread fields of waving grain
Mid wood land hills or on the plain
Though swift I fly and fair my view
Yet Susan then I think of you.

When amid my foreign friends
A Cheerful hour I try to spend
Whare kindness beams in evry face
And danties rich our feastings grace
Mid all these scenes our hearts are true
That heart which's Susans placed on you.

When before Jehovah's Throne
I bow and all my wants make known
I ask for blessings on my friends
And heavenly grace my stepts to attend
While thus in prayer I bow my knee
O! Susan then I pray for thee.

Source: Scott G. Kenney, Wilford Woodruff's Journals, 1833-1898: Typescript. 9 vols. (Midvale, UT: Signature Books, 1983-1985), 2:514-515.

The Mormon Question and the Limits of Liberty: Thoughts from 1884

The following two-paragraph editorial remark on the subject of "The Mormon Question" appeared in the 25 July 1884 issue of the New Holland Clarion and illustrates one on-the-ground perspective of LDS polygamous practices in light of the American tradition of religious liberty:

Religious liberty is the right of every citizen of the Republic. Congress is forbidden by the Constitution to make any law "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." For a century, under this guarantee, Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile, have worshipped God according to the dictates of conscience. But religious liberty must not be perverted to the justification of offenses against the law. A religious sect, strongly intrenched in one of the Territories of the Union, and spreading rapidly into four other Territories, claims the right to destroy the great safeguard and muniment of social order, and to practice as a religious privilege that which is a crime punished with severe penalty in every State of the Union. The sacredness and unity of the family must be preserved as the foundation of all civil government, as the source of orderly administration, as the surest guarantee of moral purity.

The claim of the Mormons that they are divinely authorized to practice polygamy should no more be admitted than the claim of certain heathen tribes, if they should come among us, to continue the rite of human sacrifice. The law does not interfere with what a man believes; it takes cognizance only of what he does. As citizens, the Mormons are entitled to the same civil rights as others, and to these they must be confined. Polygamy can never receive national sanction or toleration by admitting the community that upholds it as a State in the Union. Like others, the Mormons must learn that the liberty of the individual ceases where the rights of society begin.

What do we make of this asserted principle here, "the liberty of the individual ceases where the rights of the society begin"?

Celebrate! The Lord is Risen!

A blessed Easter to all! Say, "Christ is risen!"; and hear the reply, "He is risen indeed!" In the (slightly adapted) words of a wonderful hymn by Isaac Watts:

He dies! the Friend of sinners dies!
Lo! Salem's daughters weep around!
A solemn darkness veils the skies;
A sudden trembling shakes the ground:
Come, saints, and drop a tear or two
On the dear bosom of your God:
He shed a thousand drops for you,
A thousand drops of richer blood.

Here's love and grief beyond degree;
The Lord of glory dies for man!
But lo! what sudden joys I see;
Jesus, the dead, revives again!
The rising God forsakes the tomb;
The tomb in vain forbids his rise!
Cherubic legions guard him home,
And shout him welcome to the skies!

Break off your tears, ye saints, and tell
How high your great Deliverer reigns;
Sing how he spoil'd the hosts of hell,
And led the monster death in chains.
Say, "Live forever, wondrous King!
Born to redeem, and strong to save!"
Then ask the monster, "Where's thy sting?"
And, "Where's thy victory, boasting grave?"¹

Or, in the words of the full version of the classic Charles Wesley hymn for an occasion no less than this:

"CHRIST the Lord is ris'n To-day,"
Sons of Men and Angels say,
Raise your Joys and Triumphs high,
Sing ye Heav'ns, and Earth reply.

Love's Redeeming Work is done,
Fought the Fight, the Battle won,
Lo! our Sun's Eclipse is o'er,
Lo! He sets in Blood no more.

Vain the Stone, the Watch, the Seal;
CHRIST hath burst the Gates of Hell!
Death in vain forbids his Rise:
CHRIST hath open'd Paradise!

Lives again our glorious King,
Where, O Death, is now thy Sting?
Once He died our Souls to save,
Where thy Victory, O Grave?

Soar we now, where CHRIST has led,
Following our Exalted Head,
Made like Him, like Him we rise:
Ours the Cross; the Grave; the Skies.

What tho' once we perish'd All,
Partners of our Parent's Fall,
Second Life we All receive,
In our Heav'nly Adam live.

Ris'n with Him, we upward move,
Still we seek the Things above,
Still pursue, and kiss the Son,
Seated on his Father's Throne;

Scarce on Earth a Thought bestow,
Dead to all we leave below,
Heav'n our Aim, and lov'd Abode,
Hid our Life with CHRIST in GOD!

Hid; 'till CHRIST our Life appear,
Glorious in his Members here:
Join'd to Him, we then shall shine,
All Immortal, all Divine!

Hail to the LORD of Earth and Heav'n!
Praise to Thee by both be giv'n:
Thee we greet Triumphant now;
Hail the Resurrection Thou!

King of Glory, Soul of Bliss,
Everlasting Life is This,
Thee to know, thy Pow'r to prove,
Thus to sing, and thus to love!²

What a wonderful thought! And today is the day we have the privilege of celebrating it. I don't think I can express it better than the words of Paul:

If we've been united with him in a death like his, we'll certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin - because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we'll also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he can't die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:5-11)

---

¹ Hymn 553, in John Wesley, A Collection of Hymns, for the Use of the People Called Methodists (London: John Mason, 1845), 515; compare a similar version as Hymn 133 in Hymn-Book of the Evangelical Association (Cleveland, OH: Evangelical Association, 1882), 81.
² John Wesley and Charles Wesley, Hymns and Sacred Poems. 4th ed. (Bristol: Felix Farley, 1743), 144-146.

* For Easter, see also Kristine's post "Eternity's Sunrise" at the By Common Consent blog, and also the recent videos put out by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "He Is Risen" and "Jesus Is Resurrected".

A Brief Good Friday Message from Anthon Lund

Today is Good Friday, and in remembrance of that, I bring you a brief message on Good Friday from Anthon H. Lund, formerly of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

It is Good Friday today. This is celebrated by the Christian world in commemoration of the sufferings of our Savior. Eighteen hundred years and seventy-nine years ago last night, He spent some time in the Garden of Gethsemane. You know how He suffered, in contemplating that which was before Him, the bitter cup that He was to drain. He asked His Father: "If thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done." Now, this is what we all should feel to say. Today, Good Friday, the day on which He suffered so much for us, let us not forget to let our thoughts go to Him in thankfulness.

Source: Anthon H. Lund, address delivered at General Conference on 5 April 1912, in Eighty-second Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret News Book Store, 1912), 11-12.

Edna and Lottie Tell of Utah

In 1906, two local girls from West Earl Township in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, sent a series of letters to the New Holland Clarion detailing their travels out West. In the 1 September 1906 issue, the Clarion printed a letter from Edna P. Hurst and Lottie Eckert that included a section about their passage back through Utah on their return, which reads partly as thus:

The next point of interest was Great Salt Lake. The railroad crosses it from one side to the other, a distance of seven miles. Leaving the lake we passed through Ogden. Salt Lake City was our next stopping place. This is a beautiful city, twenty miles south of the lake. Here the streets are 132 feet wide and bordered on each side with trees and streams of water. Some of the finest homes in the west are found here, belonging mostly to wealthy miners. All buildings are well built.

Temple Square contains the Mormon temple, tabernacle and assembly hall. With the exception of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York it is the most costly place of worship in the country, having cost $6,000,000. It is built of snow-white granite. It has four large towers and can be seen for fifty miles. Of course, as the temple is used only for marriages and other Mormon ceremonies, we could not get in. The tabernacle is a large structure designed by Brigham Young. It was built before iron nails were used and wooden pegs and raw hide were used to fasten things together. This building has a seating capacity of 18,000. It also contains one of the largest pipe organs in the world. We heard an organ recital by McClellan, the German musician. A choir of 500 voices sings in the tabernacle on Sunday, but we could not stay to hear it.

We also saw the Bee Hive and the Lion House, which were the homes of Brigham Young and his many wives. The photos of twenty-one of these with Brigham in the centre of the group are a novelty as a souvenir post card. We also visited his grave. To our surprise there are sixteen other denominations that have houses of worship in Salt Lake City.

A trip to Salt Air Bench and a float in Salt Lake were delightful. The water is so dense with salt that one can not sink. The water crystallizes on the hair or any part of the body with which it comes in contact.

Jeffrey R Holland on Envy and Hope

I had the opportunity this past weekend to watch a full day (Saturday) of the sessions from the April 2012 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was really the first time I've ever watched General Conference (save an older talk here or there), let alone doing so with a group of Latter-day Saints in the chapel. I'm still processing some of the talks, but one that stuck out at me for its value was the talk delivered by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Elder Holland's talk was anchored in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16):

Now, contrary to the surprisingly negative coverage the talk got in conference reviews like, say, the recent Saturday Conference review episode of the Mormon Expression (ME) podcast, I loved this talk. For our setting, it encapsulated the underlying message of the parable itself, namely, a warning against envy - and I loved Elder Holland's vivid depiction of envy in terms of "downing another quart of pickle juice any time anyone around you has another good moment". I think the ME reviewers were simply off-base when they charged, in essence, that Elder Holland's spin on envy and blessings was simply another way to pass off all blame on the oppressed individual found unworthy of good callings. That seems like a really jaded approach. Rather, I think what Elder Holland was saying here was largely a very healthy approach. When others experience good in their lives, there's no ground for envy because these things belong to God to distribute as he will, and he breaks faith with no one in giving some more than they bargained for; the underlying point is that the excess given to others does not diminish the goodness of what we in fact are given.

While I do somewhat agree with the ME reviewers about the unhelpfulness of Elder Holland's allusion to 'grievances' like "an incident in church history that proves no more or less than that mortals will always struggle to live up to the hope placed before them", I again have to dissent rom them when it comes to the thrust of what Elder Holland said about the expansive reach and indefatigable perseverance of "divine love". There was an undercurrent through a number of the talks about the need to continue pursuing those who've left the LDS Church (or, at least, activity therein), in hopes of winning them back; for instance, Richard C. Edgley spoke during the General Priesthood Session a story about an inactive member who had prayed for the courage to return. The ME reviewers seemed to mostly focus on how none of this discussion really grasped their perspective on their condition. Little attention was given to the value of Elder Holland's approach, which stressed that God's love for the 'apostate' is not diminished - with the clear underlying implication that perhaps this is a love that faithful Latter-day Saints should model. Given what the LDS Church is, this seems like precisely the loving stance it ought to take without sacrificing its truth claims, and so I don't think that ME reviewers are being quite fair to the Church in demanding further progress in their direction, as they seemed to be doing. On the plus side, the ME reviewers did appreciate - in the midst of a bit of understandable snark - Elder Holland's beautiful comment that perhaps God's favorite part of being God is "the thrill of being merciful".

While there are some things that can legitimately be critiqued in Elder Holland's talk, I don't shy away from saying that I found it to be the best talk out of the entire day of General Conference sessions. (I haven't yet listened to Sunday's talks.) If I may interject a bit of mild snark myself, it's the one I heard that actually reached the standard of quality that I'd expect from a Christian pastor elsewhere. I suspect that there may be a connection between this and the fact that Elder Holland has a doctorate in American Studies, with a dissertation on the 'religious sense' of Mark Twain.

At any rate, for those of my readers who didn't see anything from General Conference and don't have the time to wade through all of the talks, this is one I'd recommend as perhaps being most edifying, not just for Latter-day Saints but in general.

Counsel for April

The following comes from W. W. Phelps, Almanac for the Year 1859: The Third after Leap Year; and after the 6th of April, Thirtieth year of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Great Salt Lake City, UT: J. McKnight, 1859), 6:

APRIL, according to its name, OPENS the season of the husbandman. Spring wheat, barley, oats, peas, and early potatoes, with every thing culinary that will not spoil in the ground by frost, claims attention now. Ditches for irrigation should not be forgotten, and animals ought not to roam at large upon new sown fields, nor graze upon Fall wheat.