Migration of English Mormons to America
1947; Oxford University Press; Volume: 52; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/1859881
ISSN1937-5239
Autores Tópico(s)Mormonism, Religion, and History
ResumoIT is a little-noted fact that after its formative years the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints drew most of its converts not from its native America but from the slums and downtrodden peasantry of Europe. Mormonism in its youth was a poor man's religion and made its appeal to the underprivileged classes. Joseph Smith, jr., the founder of the Church, and his successor, Brigham Young, were themselves of humble station, and their able lieutenants were drawn from the poor, so that it is only natural that they and their novel faith appealed to their own kind. Mormonism is, economically speaking, a way of life and a gospel of practical daily living. And from the beginning the Church emphasized that both a new way of salvation and greater financial security awaited those who embraced the gospel of the last dispensation. The foreign missionary program of the Mormon Church dates from the year I835, when the Prophet Joseph Smith told his followers in Kirtland, Ohio, that an assembly of twelve men had been assigned the important task of supervising missionary operations. He then called upon the three witnesses to the golden plates' to bless and anoint these men and set them apart as apostles. On the evening of February 27, I835, the Prophet gave the newly created Quorum of Apostles instructions regarding the modus operandi to be followed in the missionary field. At every meeting place, he said, one or more persons must be appointed to record the minutes of the meeting. This procedure would enable the Apostles to be consistent in points of doctrine, and the records they kept would be of great future value. The Prophet then concluded meaningfully:
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