Documents, Volume 1, Part 5 Introduction: February–June 1831
Part 5: February–June 1831
A JS
revelation in late December 1830 and another in early January 1831 altered the
geography of the new religion by directing that all church members in gather in
. The New York branches
quickly began preparations for a mass exodus. Many of the believers sacrificed
substantial assets and valuable land in New York as they sought to obey the
revelation in anticipation of the prophesied blessings, especially the promise to be
“endowed with power from on high.” JS and
left for ,
Ohio, in late January 1831
along with and , two Ohio residents who had traveled
to New York to meet JS a month earlier. The group reached Kirtland around the first of February, having stopped to preach and to
visit believers on their way.
On 4 February, the church’s elders were promised by
revelation, “By the prayer of your faith ye shall receive my law that ye may know
how to govern my Church.” Accordingly, on 9 February twelve elders “united in mighty prayer”
and JS dictated a revelation subsequently titled “The Laws of the Church of Christ.” Several
other revelations before the end of June 1831
addressed problems challenging church members as the and believers
gathered together in the area around . The revelations addressed the gathering, church leadership,
missionary work, communal living, and controversies surrounding expressions of
spiritual exuberance. The latter was a recurring problem, and JS dictated a number
of revelations that attempted to provide a template for understanding the difference
between proper and improper spiritual manifestations. In May 1831, a revelation called for missionary efforts to be directed toward the Shaker
community located near Kirtland. Though that attempt proved
futile, the membership of the church in Ohio continued to grow through migration and
conversion.
Meanwhile, and his missionary
companions attempted to teach the Shawnee and Delaware Indians in
the territory immediately west of . Though they
reported that their initial teaching was well received by some of
the Indians, a federal Indian agent forced them to suspend their
teaching and ordered them to leave tribal lands until they had a
proper permit. In response, Cowdery wrote a letter to , superintendent of Indian affairs, seeking
official sanction for their endeavors and dispatched to counsel with
JS on the matter. Cowdery
and the others stayed in , Missouri, where they baptized a few converts as they
awaited further instructions from and an anticipated federal
authorization to resume preaching among the Indians.
In
addition to being commissioned to preach, and his companions had been
charged to “rear up a pillar as a witness where the Temple of God shall be built, in
the glorious New-Jerusalem,” even though the precise location of the prophesied city
had not yet been identified. A month after his arrival in
,
JS
dictated a revelation in which the voice of the Lord declared: “Gether ye out from the
Eastern lands assemble ye yourselves together ye Elders of my Church ge [go] ye forth into the western countries call upon the
inhabitants to repent & in as much as they do repent build up Churches unto me
& with one heart & with one mind gether up your riches that you may purchase
an inheritance which shall hereafter be appointed you & it shall be called the
New Jerusalem a land of peace a City of refuge a place of safety for the saints of
The most high God & the glory of the Lord shall be there.” The expectation
of an impending establishment of the New Jerusalem in the West informed many of the
actions taken and documents created during these early months in .
By late spring 1831, nearly all the members of
the church had moved to and joined together with the growing number of Ohio converts. In early June, most of the elders of
the church met at a conference in ,
during which many received the “high priesthood,” and shortly thereafter, on 6 June, JS dictated a revelation calling
over two dozen men to leave on proselytizing missions. Most, including JS and
, were called to in anticipation of a conference to be held there with
and his missionary companions. The final documents in
this section were created in the context of this imminent departure to Missouri.