Full Journal

Involving Readers in the Latter-day Saint Academic Experience STUDIES BYUVol. 46 • No. 1 • 2007 ARTICLES “The Great World of the Spirits of the Dead”: Death, the Great War, and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic as Context for Doctrine and Covenants 138 4 George S. Tate On the Trail of the Twentieth-Century Mormon Outmigration 41 G. Wesley Johnson and Marian Ashby Johnson Generous Poetry: A Conversation with Dixie L. Partridge 109 Casualene Meyer Pandemonium: A Review Essay of Douglas J. Robinson, Who Translates? Translator Subjectivities beyond Reason 123 Daryl R. Hague DOCUMENTS “I Long to Breathe the Mountain Air of Zion’s Peaceful Home”: Agnes O’Neal’s Letter to Brigham Young from War-Torn Virginia 84 Fred E. Woods “It Seems That All Nature Mourns”: Sally Randall’s Response to the Murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith 95 Jordan Watkins and Steven C. Harper ESSAYS “God Works in Mysterious Ways” 101 Roger Terry From This Ground: Where a Continent Divides 119 Dixie L. Partridge POETRY Watermark: The Reservoir 108 Dixie L. Patridge Pool of Aspen 117 Dixie L. Partridge Luggage: For One Leaving 118 Dixie L. Partridge REVIEWS The Bible in English: Its History and Influence by David Daniell Richard Y. Duerden 143 Whose Bible Is It? A History of the Scriptures through the Ages by Jaroslav Pelikan Gary P. Gillum 148 The Jesus Family Tomb: The Discovery, the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino Kent P. Jackson 151 The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition by Norman Russell Jordan Vajda 161 Pedestals and Podiums: Utah Women, Religious Authority, and Equal Rights by Martha Sonntag Bradley Andrea G. Radke-Moss 165 Contemporary Mormonism: Latter-day Saints in Modern America by Claudia L. Bushman Armand L. Mauss 169 BOOK NOTICES 174 COVER IMAGE The Artwork of Ron Richmond: Catharsis no. 27 and Triplus 176 Josh E. Probert Fig. 1. The Great War (1914–1918) was one of the deadliest wars in history. The destruction and mounting casualties caused millions to mourn the loss of loved ones. Joseph F. Smith received a singular vision during this time. Chateau Wood, Ypres, 1917, photograph by Frank Hurley. “The Great World of the Spirits of the Dead” Death, the Great War, and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic as Context for Doctrine and Covenants 138 George S. Tate t the dedication of BYU’s new Joseph F. Smith Building on September A 20, 2005, President Gordon B. Hinckley said of President Joseph F. Smith, “It is my opinion that no man, save the Prophet Joseph only, has had a greater and better understanding of the origin and history of the Church and of its doctrines—not only concerning this life but also concerning the eternities.” Of the “Vision of the Redemption of the Dead,” which com- prises Doctrine and Covenants 138, he said, “It is a document without par- allel. There is nothing quite like it in all of our sacred literature.” And in the dedicatory prayer he said of President Smith, “His mind . reached into the depths of the things of eternity, the great spiritual architecture of Thy divine and eternal plan.”1 This article is an effort to understand more fully the context of D&C 138—our only passage of canonized scripture from the twentieth century. The discussion is necessarily somewhat provisional. We do not know, as we do for the Word of Wisdom, for example, the immediate circumstances that led to this revelation. But it is illuminating to consider it in terms of biographical detail and contemporary events (fig. 1). It is worth ask- ing—even if a complete answer remains elusive—why this revelation was given just when it was. First, a word about “context.” As used here, the term is meant to sug- gest the attendant environment—events, conditions, widespread concerns and sentiments that bear upon the passage at hand. The term does not 1. Gordon B. Hinckley, “Remarks at the Dedication of the Joseph F. Smith Building at Brigham Young University,” September 20, 2005, 3, 4, 5, pdf available at http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1497. BYU Studies 6, no. 1 (27) 5 6 v BYU Studies George S. Tate How did I, a medievalist, come to be so haunted by the Great War? As a young man I was drawn to the work of soldier-poet Wil- fred Owen, his musical ear and tonal inno- vations, and the underlying compassion of his poetry. In my civilization courses, I would touch upon the war as a backdrop to Eliot’s The Waste Land and other modernist texts. But about a decade ago, two works especially started me on a journey I had not anticipated: Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory and Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth. I began seriously to study the Great War, to visit battlefields and memorials while in Europe, to hunt up homes and graves of poets and other figures I had come to admire. In the late 1990s, I developed a course on the subject for London Study Abroad. That seminar has brought me greater satisfaction than any other course I’ve taught. The materials have an unmatched immediacy and poignancy, and visits to battlefields and memorials in France have overwhelmed my students and me with loss and reverence. While in the midst of my preparation, I happened to read again D&C 138, and I was struck by its date: October 3, 1918. I reread it in the context of the war, the flu pandemic, and then Joseph F. Smith’s own abundant experience with grief. I had long admired Joseph F. Smith: My priesthood line of authority comes through him; he ordained my great-grandfather, George F. Richards, an Apostle in 1906. From my father I have a first edition of Gospel Doctrine (1919). While a graduate student I came across a volume of Orson F. Whit- ney’s poetry, handsomely bound in green leather and hand inscribed as a gift from President Smith to Cornell University Library. It pleases me to see his name commemorated in BYU’s new Joseph F. Smith Building, with its architectural evocation of light and learn- ing. I remember my excitement when the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead was added to the canon in the 1970s, and as I continue to see how it resonates within its various interrelated contexts, my gratitude for its timeliness and timelessness has grown. World of the Spirits of the Dead V 7 necessarily imply causality. Indeed, as historian of ideas Quentin Skin- ner reminds us, it is problematic when “‘context’ mistakenly gets treated as the determinant of what it said” rather than as a framework.2 This article considers several events and conditions, large and small—some that precede the vision, some that are concurrent with it, and some that follow it. Some conditions, such as Joseph F. Smith’s own grief, may have influenced him to meditate on the realm of the dead; others, such as the flu pandemic, which reached its height shortly after the vision, are unlikely to have directly caused his meditation. The prophet was aware of most of these contexts—some acutely so; of others (especially of subsidiary mat- ters which I discuss, like Prince Max’s telegram or C. S. Lewis’s musing on 1 Peter) he was not. We should, however, consider not only to whom but by whom the revelation was given.3 And while it would be presumptuous to make assertions about the workings of God’s mind or will—except to acknowledge that he sees all that was, is, and will be, and that he loves his children—we can at least recognize and be grateful for the timeliness of the vision in addressing profound, worldwide needs. For when this vision is read against the backdrop of the contexts discussed here—and perhaps others not dealt with—it resonates in ways it may not otherwise. The vision that became D&C 138 was Fig. 2. Joseph F. Smith. Cour- received on October 3, 1918, the day before tesy LDS Church Archives, the Church’s general conference. President Salt Lake City. © Intellectual Smith (fig. 2) had been in poor health for Reserve, Inc. 2. Quentin Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas,” in Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics, ed. James Tully (Prince ton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 64; see also 58: “If it is true that the relations between the context of any given statement . and the statement itself do take the form . of a relation between antecedent causal conditions and their results, then it is clear that the independent life of ideas in history must be cor- respondingly in danger.” 3. Even while responding to the whisperings of the Spirit, a prophet’s understanding, as Mormon recognizes, is necessarily limited in relation to the Lord’s: “And I do this for a wise purpose; for thus it whispereth me, according to the workings of the Spirit of the Lord which is in me. And now, I do not know all things; but the Lord knoweth all things which are to come; wherefore, he worketh in me to do according to his will” (W of M 1:7). 8 v BYU Studies some time, and it came as “a complete surprise to the large congregation” when he entered the Salt Lake Tabernacle for the first session.4 In his weak- ened condition he spoke only briefly. The front page of theDeseret Evening News for October 4 summarizes his comments.

Load more