Francis (“Frank”) Hammond was not an average Mormon pioneer. After breaking his back working on a whaling ship off the coast of Siberia in 1844, he was set ashore on the island of Maui to heal. While there he set up shop as a shoemaker and learned the local language. Three years later, he converted to Mormonism in San Franciso, and in 1851 he was sent back to Hawaii as a missionary along with his new wife, Mary Jane. In the 1860s he returned to the islands as mission president.
Through all this, he and his wife kept extensive and fascinating journals, documenting their adventures on land and sea, as well as relations (some prickly) with fellow missionaries and non-Mormon caucasians and Hawaiians. Hammond established a Mormon gathering place on the island of Lana’i, and in the 1860s he traveled by stagecoach from Utah to the west coast with a satchel of $5,000 in gold coins to purchase the land that became the site in O’ahu of the LDS temple, church college, and Polynesian Culture Center.
In 1842, founder Joseph Smith foresaw the LDS Women's Relief Society as "a kingdom of Priests," that he "would ordain them to preside over the society...just the Presidency preside over the church." Originally, the LDS Women's Relief Society paralleled the LDS men's priesthood quorums. Women were "ordained" to various positions, as well as set apart to be healers "with power to rebuke diseases."
In the 19th-century, Mormon theology also spoke of a Mother God, having "all power and glory" with the Father in Heaven. Mormon doctrine also hinted at the divine status of Eve, Mary, and Mary Magdalene.
The 19th-century Woman's Exponent, published by the LDS Women's Relief Society, editorialized in favor of "equal rights before the law, equal pay for equal work, equal political rights." The magazine's masthead read, "The Rights of the Women of Zion and the Rights of Women of All Nations."
One Relief Society founder, Sarah Kimball, referred to herself as "a woman's rights woman," while another leader, Bathsheba Smith, was called on a Relief Society mission in 1870 to preach "woman's rights" throughout southern Utah. According to the Woman's Exponent, a woman's place was not just "in the nursery" but "in the library, the laboratory, the observatory."
Women were encouraged to pursue formal education and career opportunities, study medicine and involve themselves in politics. Mormon women were assured that "when men see that women can exist without them, it will perhaps take a little of the conceit out of some of them."
Women who served inside LDS temples were termed "priestesses," while LDS Women's Relief Society president Eliza R. Snow was known as a "prophetess." Snow discouraged women from confiding their personal issues to male bishops, saying that such matters "should be referred to the Relief Society president and her counselors."
In 1875, LDS Women's Relief Society president, Emmeline B. Wells, could say with confidence: "Let woman speak for herself; she has the right of freedom of speech. Women are too slow in moving forward, afraid of criticism, of being called unwomanly, of being thought masculine. What of it? If men are so much superior to women, the nearer we come up to the manly standard the higher we elevate ourselves."
Marion Duff Hanks (1921–2011) was one of the most beloved and influential leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the twentieth century, serving as a General Authority (senior leader) for forty years. He was also a leader of national import. As a recognized expert on youth, five US presidents appointed him to their President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. Hanks also served as an executive leader of Rotary International and the Boy Scouts of America.
Author Richard Hanks draws on previously unavailable primary sources—journals, correspondence, notebooks, and recordings—to share this first and only authorized biography of his father. Hanks traces his father’s influence as he advocated for numerous changes in the institutional church, including humanitarian efforts, refugee relief services, missionary community service, a focus on mercy for the sinner, and a churchwide emphasis on “coming unto Christ.” A Renaissance man, Duff Hanks felt comfortable mingling with presidents and world leaders and speaking from pulpits and podiums to huge audiences and on television. But he found his greatest joy in assisting the individual, encouraging each in their personal search for happiness. Once, when asked about his goals, he replied, “My strongest desire is to qualify to be a friend of Christ.”
“This is a brilliant novel, written with language that crackles. The relationships are treated with force and poignancy. The power of the story is its authenticity and the character’s compelling conversion. He begins as a boy who refuses to accept responsibility, becomes the husband who longs for freedom, and at last the man who feels God’s grace in spite of himself and the self-destructive path that has beckoned to him with a siren’s allure. This brings a voice to Mormon literature that is clearly worth honoring.” —Marilyn Brown, author of The Wine Dark Sea of Grass
This was not the first time that Talmage had been of service to his church. As a geology professor, he was consulted about underground ventilation options for the Salt Lake Tabernacle and about the scientific evidence for organic evolution, which he cautiously promoted. At the church president’s request, Talmage also delivered a series of lectures on church theology which would form the basis for his later influential books.
Not that Talmage was unaccustomed to controversy. When his book, The Articles of Faith, first appeared, he was accused of “apostasy” and narrowly escaped church sanction. When he read from an advance text of Jesus the Christ in general conference, some leaders objected to the doctrinal content and had the offending paragraphs excised from the published conference proceedings.
Scholars have noted that much of Talmage’s work reflects the thinking of his day, particularly in his reliance on Frederick Farrar’s Life of Christ and in his portrayal of a so-called “Victorian Jesus.” But as James P. Harris observes, Talmage also “supplemented the biblical narrative with modern revelation” and produced “a source of information and inspiration to church members worldwide.”
The Essential James E. Talmage includes some of the apostle’s lesser-known works. For Talmage’s more popular writings, the editor has included relevant diary entries and material omitted from later editions. Readers will appreciate the process by which these seminal works were produced and the character of the man who composed them.
Previous, popular editions of Smith’s speeches and writings have edited out the extemporaneous complexities, as well as any deviations from present-day doctrines. Recent academic publications, for their part, have too often camouflaged the text in scholarly apparata. By contrast, this volume brings together a sampling of the prophet’s thinking from New York to Illinois in a complete, unabridged form, utilizing the earliest known sources, without excessive footnoting or commentary. No attempt is made to harmonize disparate, conflicting ideas. Readers can trace the developing, revelatory unfolding of ideas for themselves. They can also enjoy the text without reference to any interpretative agenda. In other words, The Essential Joseph Smith is readable and reliable. Bracketed material and punctuation are added where needed, but the text otherwise speaks for itself. These are Joseph Smith’s own words, his most essential messages.
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