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I get a kick out of the early 19th century culture… After weeks of long hours laboring in the Nauvoo temple there was apparently a spirit of celebration. This was during a trying and uncertain time for the body of membership – many of the twelve had warrants out against them, and an agreement had been reached that placed most of the Nauvoo residents out of their homes and city by the following spring.
From the journal of William Clayton; December 30th 1845, Tuesday:
“The labors of the day having been brought to a close at so early an hour viz; half past 8, it was thought proper to have a little season of recreation, accordingly, Brother Hans Hanson was invited to produce his violin. He did so, and played several lively airs, among the rest some very good lively dancing tunes. This was too much for the gravity of Brother Joseph Young, who indulged in a hornpipe, and was soon joined by several others, and before the dance was over several French fours were indulged in. The first was opened by President B. Young with Sister Whitney and Elder H. C. Kimball with Sister Lewis. The spirit of dancing increased until the whole floor was covered with dancers. After this had continued about an hour, several excellent songs were sung, in which several of the brethren and sisters joined. The Upper California was sung by Erastus Snow. After which Sister Whitney being invited by President Young, stood up and invoking the gift of tongues, sung one of the most beautiful songs in tongues, that ever was heard. The interpretation was given by her husband, Bishop Whitney, it related to our efforts to build this House, and to the privilege we now have of meeting together in it, of our departure shortly to the country of the Lamanites, and their rejoicing when they hear the gospel, and of the ingathering of Israel. Altogether, it was one of the most touching and beautiful exhibitions of the power of the Spirit in the gift of tongues which was ever seen. (So it appeared to the writer of this.) After a little conversation of a general nature, the exercises of the evening were closed by prayer by President B. Young, and soon after most of the persons present left the Temple for their homes . . .”Beautiful. Thanks, Orson. HiJolly
Quote:After which Sister Whitney being invited by President Young, stood up and invoking the gift of tongues, sung one of the most beautiful songs in tongues, that ever was heard.
Sweet! I notice this gift of tongues seems to be a 19th century thing, not just mormon but all religions of that time seemed to see it as the spirit working. And you don’t see this really in today’s church, although some say the MTC qualifies (hardly similar to the experience related above, IMO).
Dances in the temples. Very interesting. Glad they don’t still do that…it would make me want to go to the temple less often than I do now.
All joking aside, I like the idea that after working hard, there was time for enjoying life…and the gospel is not to be a hellish earthly existence so we can have blessings only in the afterworld. Life should be times of joy, times of sadness. A good balance. That makes me appreciate those early church leaders who could see the value of that.
Heber13 wrote:
Dances in the temples. Very interesting. Glad they don’t still do that…it would make me want to go to the temple less often than I do now.
Yes, Bushman often says “Joseph never built an ordinary chapel.” We know that both the Kirtland and Nauvoo temples served both purposes of meetinghouse and temple – so it’s not so strange when you look at it that way.
Orson wrote:Heber13 wrote:Growing up, dances where where the girls were, otherwise, I had no interest in dancing.
Now that I’m married…dancing has no value to me. Oh well, that’s just me.
Many things in the early church progressed differently than the way we see the church now. I think we’d like to think sometimes that angels revealed everything to Joseph Smith on how it all should be, and we have the church today just the way the angels revealed it. Tempels were needed and endowment powers were given, just like today we are endowed and sealed. The priesthood, baptisms, and other things in the church didn’t just start up as a understood teaching and practice that still is the same today…they were put into practice and then as they understood more from their practice of the principles, things evolved to the church we know today.
I can’t hardly whisper in english today without being shushed…I wouldn’t even try to pull out a violen in today’s temples.
Come on Heber!! Just shake your groove thing! Quote:Yes, Bushman often says “Joseph never built an ordinary chapel.” We know that both the Kirtland and Nauvoo temples served both purposes of meetinghouse and temple – so it’s not so strange when you look at it that way
And thanks for explaining that Orson. I really wonder about the talking in tongues thing. I really would like to hear an explanation that satisfies my brain, not that there is one. Why did it happen then and not now? And why do we water it down to the MTC language training? Hmm.
Frankly that “19th century culture” sounds suspiciously like “21st century Pentecostalism.” I think they had more in common with Holy Rollers than we currently do. ” The priesthood, baptisms, and other things in the church didn’t just start up as a understood teaching and practice that still is the same today…they were put into practice and then as they understood more from their practice of the principles, things evolved to the church we know today.” Er..uh…
I normally just bite my tongue but I don’t guess I understand that one at all.
With respect…
The priesthood is not/has never been…something “in the church”.
Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdrey, yada/yada all had the priesthood when no “church” existed.
Worlds have been, and continue to be, created by this authority…not the authority of a “church”.
I know…it’s taken me a decade or so to break that mindset…
“A bible, a bible…”
“The church, the church…”
I guess I need to be straightened out as to how baptisms aren’t an “undersood teaching and practice”….
Er..uh.. The priesthood is not a “teaching” or a “practice”.
How is baptism different?
How did “they” understand more from their “practice of the principles”?
Sorry but I really don’t follow this….
However, it wouldn’t be the first/last time I was wrong…
Bruce in Montana wrote:Er..uh.. The priesthood is not a “teaching” or a “practice”.
How is baptism different?
How did “they” understand more from their “practice of the principles”?
Bruce, I guess I was just thinking that it wasn’t institutionalized like it is today.Deacons weren’t called at 12 to pass the sacrament, baptisms were done for repentence and rebaptisms occurred…unlike today’s church practice (not that rebaptisms don’t happen today, but it is now taught it us not needed unless there are specific circumstances).
So the early church had the priesthood, but it wasn’t structured and organized the same as today, from what I understand. Neither was church service. Neither was temple service. They didn’t all just poof into existence, they were developed as understanding was given.
poppyseed wrote:I really wonder about the talking in tongues thing. I really would like to hear an explanation that satisfies my brain
Me too. Has anyone ever experienced this gift that would want to share an experience? Or witnessed it personally? Is it a spiritual experience? I believe it was for many, of course, back in the early 1800’s that seemed to be the culture that people looked for those types of spiritual gifts as witnesses of the spirit. Yet Joseph Smith seemed to come down on many mormon groups discouraging eccentric behavior until it seemed to go away.
They holy rollers….yeah MH, I find myself thinking the same thing. And then I think what Heber just said about Joseph kinda clamping down on eccentric behaviors. I thought this was part of the process of getting the protestant (ideas of men mingled with scripture) habit out of the people and move them to a place of genuine experience from on high. Now I see the transition to the “institution of all things” ( complete with giving everything an acronym) and, like I said in a different thread, I wonder now if the church has lost the luster that Joseph restored. I remember one comment from Joseph concerning what made this church different from all the rest when he something about it being the power/gift of the holy ghost. Did he mean “gift” of the holy ghost or “gifts”? And if you talk to a protestant church that does practice the speaking in tongues, they would say that it was the thing that was evidence of the spirit of God and why mormon church can’t be true….or that our lack of this practice is evidence that the Spirit isn’t in this church. I sometimes wonder if we have gone too far the other direction in our efforts not to be eccentric……or maybe to be accepted in the world????.
I think about Orson’s post and then about the dedication of the Kirtland temple. We are talking day of pentacost kind of miracles here!!! Angels on the roof….babies speaking….the whole nine yards! Just the other day we had the chance to view the dedication of another temple in Utah. I came away from the service feeling the deficit between then and now. I mean, we took our family to the church house to be interviewed and to get temple recommends. We were told to fast and pray to prepare for the sacredness of this holy solumn assembly…..and then we got there and the talks felt light and trite and like they were just stories I could have read in the next edition of the Ensign. And then there was that whole thing with the men all wearing white and sitting on the stand and the female speakers wearing normal clothes and seated in the congregation, which is another thread altogether. But where was the doctrinal meat? Where was the powerful infusion of spirit? Gosh…..both my H and I were a little underwhelmed by the whole thing. This was my H’s first temple dedication and he was expecting a solumn assembly. I looked around the room and there were people tearing up. Our kids slept thru most of it as did other kids around us. I am an easy crier so I was wondering if I was missing something that other people saw or felt. OR….other people were just buying something we weren’t.
Poppyseed, Thanks for bringing up your experience at the recent temple dedication. My husband and I had a very similiar experience at the dedication of the Nauvoo temple. Of all the temples dedicated, we felt the rebuilding of the Nauvoo temple and its dedication, should have been something special. Whenever I read about the Kirkland temple dedication or how some of the early members experienced their baptisms, I would find that so marvelous and wish more of this kind of experiences would be happening today. Prophet Hinckley is a wonderful man and I have always liked him, but we could tell that his mind was getting older and he mixed up some things he had to be corrected on. When the Hosanna shout of the session came up with the handkerchief, my husband and I were surprised at what little enthusiasm the members expressed. It was like alot of our ward members sing during church (lifeless). We were expecting loud expression of joy and happiness. Instead it was like everyone felt uncomfortable doing it. When we came out, there were all these booths set up with selling souveniors of the temple, but it reminded me of the money changers that Jesus cast out of the temple. Some people do seem to have powerful experiences in the temple, and I envy them. Sometimes, I wonder if its like the story of “The emperor has no clothes.” That people just pretend stuff because they think they should act this way. I do not want to come across as belitting the church or its members but there are so many things I do not understand. I have sincerely fasted and prayed so many times to get a stronger testimony of temple work and just the opposite has happened for me. As far as speaking in tongues….When I was 18 I went with a girlfriend to visit her four square church. There was alot of ‘speaking in tongues’ going on there. It was so strange to me and very pentecostal like, but no interpretation of tongues, so I certainly was not edified. My most spiritual experiences have come in the middle of the night over concerns for my children. I have also had many spiritual experiences while preparing Sunday school lessons or in Relief Society. I have a testimony of some teachings of the church and so I go by that for now.
First off I feel the need to apologize for bumping a thread that hasn’t been posted in for over 4 years. I’ve found a wealth of information in this forum and I’m currently working my way from the back reading threads with titles that interest me. I came across this one and had a few thoughts. I’ll try not to make it a habit to bump such old threads. Where are the people speaking in tongues, visitations by angels, and pillars of fire in our current temple dedications? I see a few possible explanations.
I don’t think anyone would argue that there are many differences in culture between early saints and saints of our day. If God wants to speak to us it’s going to be in a language we can understand and it will be within the confines of our (personal) faith – otherwise we’d miss the message completely or write it off as crazy. I don’t think God wants us to miss the message so I think we only receive communication in forms that we can understand. Early saints were fluent in the faith of burning pillars, angel visitations, and speaking in tongues so that’s what they received. The question then becomes why are we as a people no longer fluent in the faith of burning pillars, etc.? What faith are we then fluent in? Is one faith better or more convincing that the other? Maybe crying in church is all we allow ourselves to see and feel and maybe that’s sufficient?
There’s another reason that came to my mind. One that motivated me enough to comment on a long dead thread. IMO there’s one
starkdifference between the temples of the early saints and the temples constructed in our day. The early saints sacrificed meals, comfort, blood, sweat, and tears to construct their temples. They took shifts to aid in construction. They gave up the best of their best materials to build the temple. Their handiwork was present in the temple. Nowadays we’re several steps removed from the process. We pay tithing, never knowing whether the tithing we paid contributed toward the building and maintenance of our specific local temple(s). Most of us did not provide assistance in the physical construction of our local temple, a construction crew came along to build the temple, we went about our daily lives, and a few months later there’s a temple where there was none before. I realize that these are different times. It’s impractical to have an Elders Quorum show up to work on temples, they’d need training, certification, etc., etc. Still the nature of the beast is that some of the opportunities to sacrifice of our time and talents is missing from the current equation. I believe that love is born and grows through sacrifice. The early saints sacrificed quite a bit to construct their temple, they certainly loved it as a result. I wrote a check and sat on my sofa watching Futurama.
😳 Perhaps there were opportunities to
workon the temple and I was simply too lazy to look for them. That said, back then it was sacrifice or no temple. Now we just need a certain percentage of the community to pay tithing and attend meetings. It’s a hard thing to suggest, but perhaps the more spiritual blessings are commensurate to our own level of effort as a community.
Another theory that I’ve seen floating around out there was that the early saints saw angels, spoke in tongues, and saw burning pillars of fire because they had fasted quite a bit… and started off the dedicatory festivities with a bit of wine. Maybe that’s just a rationalization by people of our day… an attempt to interpose the faith and experiences of our day to a time where a different culture lent itself to different faith based experiences; or maybe they were smashed out of their gourds.
Switching gears…
The Hosanna Shout – I admit, I was a bit uncomfortable doing it. I think a very large part of the culture of the church would equate reverence to dead silence. Dead silence. Now take that culture and place her people in what they are told is the most reverent environment to be found on Earth. Now tell them to shout. See how that goes.
:shifty: It’s hard for us to shout for joy simply because we don’t get enough practice doing it.
Speaking in tongues – By and large I believe it became taboo because it is a form of worship that by definition is worn on one’s sleeve. Is it a real manifestation or is Brother Nibbler trying to prove how spiritual he is? It’s unfortunate the mind (or maybe just my mind) works that way because it can destroy faith in what could have otherwise been an uplifting spiritual experience. So yes, the gift has been pigeon holed into missionaries learning new languages to preach the gospel, but was there more to be had? In other words, have I limited the blessings to be had by limiting the gift?
Excellent comment, nibbler. Truly excellent! Also, just to say this explicitly:
Nobody in this forum EVER needs to feel bad about bumping up old threads.I do it all the time when I come across one or when I remember one that relates to a current conversation. What’s the use of having older threads available if we can’t learn from them? We don’t delete old threads specifically so people can read and learn from them and/or comment on them. I have enjoyed revisiting the threads you’ve bumped, nibbler. Sincerely, thank you.
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