“An Essential Preparation,” chapter 5 of Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, Volume 3, Boldly, Nobly, and Independent, 1893–1955 (2022)
Chapter 5: “An Essential Preparation”
Chapter 5
An Essential Preparation
As her ship steamed into the port of Liverpool, England, twenty-one-year-old Inez Knight spotted her older brother William on the docks, waiting in a crowd of fellow missionaries. It was April 22, 1898. Inez and her companion, Jennie Brimhall, were coming to the British Mission as the first single women set apart as “lady missionaries” for the Church. Like Will and the other elders, they would be preaching at street meetings and going door to door, spreading the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.1
The decision to call women as missionaries was partly a result of Elizabeth McCune’s preaching the year before. After seeing Elizabeth’s effect on audiences, mission leader Joseph McMurrin had written to President Woodruff. “If a number of bright and intelligent women were called on missions to England,” he reasoned, “the results would be excellent.”2
The First Presidency agreed. Louisa Pratt, Susa Gates, and other married women had served successful missions alongside their husbands, though without official mission calls. Leaders in the Relief Society and YLMIA, moreover, had been good ambassadors for the Church at venues like the World’s Fair of 1893. And many young, unmarried women had gained experience teaching and leading in YLMIA meetings, preparing them to preach the word of God.3
After reuniting with Will, Inez walked with him and Jennie to the mission headquarters, a four-story building the Saints had occupied since the 1850s. There they met President McMurrin. “I want each of you to understand that you have been called here by the Lord,” he said. As he spoke, Inez felt for the first time the great responsibility resting on her shoulders.4
The next day, she and Jennie accompanied President McMurrin and other missionaries to Oldham, a manufacturing town east of Liverpool. In the evening, they formed a circle on a busy street corner, offered a prayer, and sang hymns until a large crowd formed around them. President McMurrin announced that a special meeting would be held the following day, and he invited everyone to come and hear preaching from “real live Mormon women.”
As he said this, a sick feeling crept over Inez. She was nervous about speaking to a large crowd. Still, as she stood among the missionaries in their silk hats and black suits, she had never been prouder to be a Latter-day Saint.5
The next evening, Inez trembled as she waited for her turn to speak. Having heard terrible lies about Latter-day Saint women from William Jarman and other critics of the Church, people were curious about her and the other women speaking at the meeting. Sarah Noall and Caroline Smith, the wife and sister-in-law of one of the missionaries, addressed the congregation first. Inez then spoke, despite her fear, and surprised herself by how well she did.
Inez and Jennie were soon assigned to labor in Cheltenham. They went door to door and frequently testified at street meetings. They also accepted invitations to meet with people in their homes. Listeners usually treated them well, although occasionally someone would mock them or accuse them of lying.6
Efforts to correct false information received a boost when James E. Talmage, the English-born Latter-day Saint scholar, traveled throughout the United Kingdom to give public lectures on Utah, the American West, and the Saints. The lectures were held in well-known halls and attracted hundreds of people. As he spoke, James used a device called a stereopticon to project high-quality images of Utah onto a large screen, giving audiences a vivid picture of the state’s people and places. After one presentation, a man left saying, “That was vastly different to Jarman’s lecture.”7
Inez and Jennie, meanwhile, hoped to see more women serving missions. “We feel that the Lord is blessing us in our attempts to allay prejudice and spread the truth,” they reported to mission leaders. “We trust that many of the worthy young women in Zion will be permitted to enjoy the same privilege we now have, for we feel that they can do much good.”8
Around the time Inez Knight and Jennie Brimhall left for England, Hirini Whaanga arrived in Wellington, New Zealand, as a full-time missionary. The First Presidency had issued the call at the beginning of 1898, and Hirini responded immediately. “I shall make all necessary preparation,” he told the presidency, “and will endeavor to magnify my calling as an elder in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”9
Hirini’s mission call, like those of the single female missionaries, marked a milestone in the history of the Church. Although Māori “home missionaries” had sometimes assisted the elders in New Zealand, Hirini was the first Māori called into full-time service. The call came after Benjamin Goddard and Ezra Stevenson, two former missionaries to New Zealand, recommended that President Woodruff send Hirini on a mission. As one of the most beloved and respected Māori in the Church, Hirini could do a great work among his people, including gathering their genealogy and testifying of the sacred work he and his wife, Mere, were performing in the Salt Lake Temple.10 With exaggerated reports of their family’s hardships in Kanab creating unrest among some Māori Saints, he could also give a true account of his experiences in Utah.11
Aware of the Whaanga family’s financial struggles, members of the Zion’s Māori Association promised to pay for Hirini’s mission. The Salt Lake City Eleventh Ward also held a benefit concert to raise money for him.12
Leaving his family in Utah, Hirini traveled to New Zealand with other new missionaries. Now seventy years old, he was decades older than all of his companions. Ezra Stevenson, who had recently lost his wife and only child, led the group as the new mission president. He had served as the secretary of the Zion’s Māori Association just prior to his call and spoke Māori well. None of the other new American missionaries could speak the language.13
The day after arriving in New Zealand, Hirini and his companions attended a conference about fifty miles northeast of the city of Wellington. Knowing Hirini would be there, many Māori Saints made an extra effort to attend. They and the other New Zealand Saints met the missionaries with a brass band and led them down the street to the conference. There the new arrivals were greeted with a Māori ceremonial dance called the haka.
Tears flowed freely for the rest of the afternoon. The Saints enjoyed a meal, and Hirini’s relatives shook hands with him and pressed their foreheads and noses against his in a traditional Māori greeting. The mission president then led Māori Saints to a nearby porch, where they gathered around Hirini and gave speeches to welcome him back to the North Island. They did not retire until after two o’clock in the morning.14
The next day, Hirini preached to the Saints about Joseph Smith, priesthood authority, and the work of the Zion’s Māori Association. He also asked the Saints to gather their genealogies and have temple work done for their dead.15
Following the conference, the Saints returned to their homes, and Hirini and Ezra began their tour of the mission.16
In the spring of 1898, tensions between the United States and Spain arose after an American battleship exploded off the coast of Havana, Cuba. Newspapers blamed Spain for the explosion and ran heart-wrenching stories about the Cubans’ struggle for independence from Spanish rule. Across the United States, indignant citizens called on Congress to intervene in Cuba’s behalf.17
In Utah, Church leaders were divided over going to war with Spain. Aside from outfitting the Mormon Battalion for the Mexican-American War of 1846–48, the Church had never encouraged Saints to enlist in the military during armed conflicts. George Q. Cannon favored action against Spain, but Joseph F. Smith lamented the war fever sweeping the nation. In the Woman’s Exponent, Emmeline Wells published pieces supporting and opposing war.18
No Church leader was more vocal in his opposition to war than apostle Brigham Young Jr. “The mission of the gospel is peace,” he declared at a meeting in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, “and the Latter-day Saints should strive to create and maintain it.” Calling the rising conflict “a chasm that had been dug by uninspired men,” he urged young Saints not to enlist in the armed forces.19
Whenever controversies arose in the Church, Wilford Woodruff would usually turn to his counselors, George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith, and ask, “Well, brethren, what do you think of this?” But after learning what Brigham Jr. had said, the prophet quickly censured him. The Church had only recently mended its relationship with the United States, and President Woodruff did not want prominent Church leaders appearing disloyal to the nation.
“Such remarks were very unwise and ought not to have been made,” he said. “We are now a part of the nation, and we are under obligation to do our share with the rest of the citizens of the government.”20
The United States declared war on Spain on April 25, 1898, the day after Brigham Jr.’s speech, and the Deseret Evening News published an editorial affirming the Saints’ loyalty to the United States. “Not lovers of war, nor given to bloodthirstiness, they are nevertheless firmly and steadfastly with and for Our Country in every just cause,” it declared. Soon, more than six hundred Utahns enlisted in the U.S. armed forces to fight in the war, which lasted just a few months.21
Around that time, Wilford’s health began to decline. And in early June, George Q. Cannon suffered a minor stroke. At the invitation of friends of the Church in California, the two men traveled to San Francisco, hopeful its mild climate would help them rest and recover. There they consulted with doctors, visited friends, and met with the local branch of Saints.22
On August 29, Wilford and George took a carriage ride through a park beside the Pacific Ocean. As they watched waves roll in from the sea and break against the shore, Wilford talked about his time as a missionary in the early days of the Church. He recalled sharing the gospel with his father and stepmother, who were baptized just before his first child was born.
He and George had met for the first time a year and a half later. Wilford had been a young apostle on his first mission to England. George had been a thirteen-year-old boy with a fondness for books.
Now, sitting side by side nearly sixty years later, they spoke of the gospel and the happiness it brought them. “What delightful labor we have had,” they agreed, “in bearing testimony to the work of God.”23
Three days later, on September 2, George sent a telegram from San Francisco to Joseph F. Smith in Salt Lake City:
President Woodruff is dead. He left us at 6:40 this morning. Break the news to his family. He slept peacefully all night and passed away without movement.24
Lorenzo Snow was at his home in northern Utah when he learned of the prophet’s passing. He immediately caught a train for Salt Lake City, anxious about the future. As the senior apostle, he knew he would likely become the next president of the Church. Six years earlier, in fact, President Woodruff had spoken to Lorenzo about the Lord’s will for him as the next prophet.
“When I go, I want you, Brother Snow, not to delay but organize the First Presidency,” he had said. “Take George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith for your counselors. They are good, wise, and men of experience.”25
But Lorenzo was worried about taking on the office, especially when he thought about the state of Church finances. Despite the efforts of Heber J. Grant and others, the Church was still mired in debt, and some people were speculating that it owed at least a million dollars to creditors. Lorenzo himself feared the debt was as high as three million.26
In the days following President Woodruff’s death, Lorenzo directed Church business as president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Yet he felt deeply inadequate. On September 9, the day after the funeral, Lorenzo met with the Twelve. Still feeling unequal to the calling, he proposed stepping down as president of the quorum. The apostles, however, voted to continue sustaining him as their leader.27
One evening, around this time, Lorenzo sought the will of the Lord in the Salt Lake Temple. He felt depressed and discouraged about his new responsibilities. After changing into his temple clothing, he pleaded with the Lord to enlighten his mind. The Lord answered his prayer, clearly manifesting that Lorenzo needed to follow President Woodruff’s counsel to reorganize the First Presidency immediately. George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith were to be his counselors.
Lorenzo did not tell his fellow apostles about his revelation. Instead, he waited, hoping they would receive the same spiritual witness about what to do.28
The quorum met again on September 13 to discuss Church finances. With President Woodruff gone, the Church no longer had a trustee-in-trust to handle its temporal business. The apostles knew this responsibility would eventually fall on the next Church president. But the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles had always waited more than a year before organizing a new First Presidency. For the time being, they needed to authorize someone to carry out Church business until the Saints sustained a new president.
As the apostles discussed solutions to the problem, Heber J. Grant and Francis Lyman suggested simply organizing a new First Presidency. “If the Lord should manifest to you, President Snow, that it was the proper thing to do now,” Francis said, “I am prepared to not only vote for a trustee-in-trust but for the president of the Church.”
The other apostles embraced the idea quickly. Joseph F. Smith proposed that they appoint Lorenzo as the new president, and everyone sustained the motion.
“It is for me to do the very best I can, and depend upon the Lord,” Lorenzo said. He then told the apostles about the revelation he received in the temple. “I have not mentioned this matter to any person, either man or woman,” he said. “I wanted to see if the same spirit which the Lord manifested to me was in you.”
Now that the apostles had received the witness, Lorenzo was ready to accept the Lord’s call to serve as the next president of the Church.29
One month later, at the October 1898 general conference, the Saints sustained Lorenzo Snow, George Q. Cannon, and Joseph F. Smith as the new First Presidency.30
President Snow made repairing the Church’s financial situation his first priority as president. He carried out a plan approved by Wilford Woodruff before his death to sell long-term, low-interest bonds to help cover the Church’s immediate expenses. He organized an audit committee to assess Church finances and instituted a new accounting system. He also sought to generate new revenue by having the Church take full ownership of the Deseret News, which had previously been in private hands.31
These efforts improved the Church’s financial footing, but none of it was enough. At the April 1899 general conference, President Snow and other Church leaders preached on tithing, a law the Saints had not kept diligently since the government seized significant Church assets more than a decade earlier. The prophet also counseled the Saints not to go into debt themselves.
“Wear your old hats until you can pay for a new one,” he said. “Your neighbor may be able to buy a piano for his family, but wait till you can pay for one before you get one.”32
He also instructed local leaders to spend Church funds wisely. “There might be circumstances that would justify our going into debt, but they are comparatively few,” he said. “As a rule, it is wrong.”33
One morning early in May, President Snow was sitting in bed when his son LeRoi came into the room. LeRoi had just returned from a mission to Germany and was working as his father’s personal secretary. The prophet greeted him and announced, “I am going to St. George.”34
LeRoi was surprised. St. George was in the southwestern corner of the state, three hundred miles away. To get there, they had to take the train as far south as it would go, then travel the rest of the way by carriage. It would be a long, demanding trip for an eighty-five-year-old man.35
They left later that month, traveling with several friends and Church leaders. When they arrived in St. George, dusty and weary from the journey, they went to the home of stake president Daniel McArthur, where they were to stay the night. Curious, the stake president asked why they had come.
“Well,” President Snow said, “I don’t know what we’ve come to St. George for, only the Spirit told us to come.”36
The next day, May 17, the prophet met with the Saints in the St. George Tabernacle, a red sandstone building several blocks northwest of the temple. He had been restless the night before, but he looked strong and alert as he waited for the meeting to begin. He was the first speaker, and when he stood to address the Saints, his voice was clear.37
“We can scarcely express the reason why we came,” he said, “yet I presume the Lord will have somewhat to say to us.” He had not been to St. George in thirteen years, and he spoke of how pleased he was to see the Saints in town placing the kingdom of God over the pursuit of wealth. He urged them to listen to the voice of the Spirit and heed His words.
“To go to heaven we must first learn to obey the laws of heaven,” he told them, “and we shall approach God’s kingdom just as fast as we learn to obey His laws.”38
During the sermon, President Snow paused unexpectedly, and the room went utterly still. His eyes brightened, and his countenance shone. When he opened his mouth, his voice was stronger. The inspiration of God seemed to fill the room.39
He then spoke on tithing. Most of the Saints in St. George were full-tithe payers, and the prophet acknowledged their faithfulness. He also noted that the poor were the most generous tithe payers. But he lamented that many other Saints were reluctant to pay a full tithing, even though the recent financial crisis had ended and the economy was improving. He wanted all Saints to observe the principle strictly. “This is an essential preparation for Zion,” he said.40
The next afternoon, President Snow spoke again at the tabernacle. “The time has now come,” he announced to the congregation, “for every Latter-day Saint who calculates to be prepared for the future and to hold his feet strong upon a proper foundation, to go and do the will of the Lord and to pay his tithing in full. That is the word of the Lord to you, and it will be the word of the Lord to every settlement throughout the land of Zion.”41
On his return trip to Salt Lake City, President Snow stopped in villages and towns along the way to testify of the Lord’s revealed will. “We have been educated in the law of tithing for sixty-one years but have not yet learned to observe it,” he told the Saints in one town. “We are in a fearful condition, and because of it the Church is in bondage. The only relief is for the Saints to observe this law.” He challenged them to obey the law fully and promised the Lord would bless them for their efforts. He also declared that tithe paying would now be a firm requirement for temple attendance.42
When he arrived in Salt Lake City, he continued to urge the Saints to pay tithing, promising that the Lord would forgive their past disobedience to the law, sanctify their land, and keep them from harm. On July 2, he spoke about the law at a meeting with general authorities, general Church officers, stake presidencies, and bishops in the Salt Lake Temple.43
“The Lord has forgiven us for our carelessness in paying our tithing in the past, but He will forgive us no longer,” he declared. “If we do not obey this law, we will be scattered as were the Saints in Jackson County.”
Before the close of the meeting, the prophet called on everyone to stand up, raise their right hands, and pledge to accept and keep the law of tithing as the word of the Lord. “We want you to be diligent in obeying this law,” he told the Saints, “and see that the word is conveyed to all parts of the Church.”44