To “soft soap” meant “to flatter; to blarney.” (Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms, 320.)
Bartlett, John Russell. Dictionary of Americanisms: A Glossary of Words and Phrases, Usually Regarded as Peculiar to the United States. New York: Bartlett and Welford, 1848.
Probably Lyman E. Johnson. Kimball’s daughter Helen Mar Kimball Whitney later recorded having stopped with her family at Johnson’s home at Richmond, Missouri, in the summer of 1838 on their way to Far West, Missouri, after Kimball’s first mission to England. Although Johnson had left the church by that point, Whitney noted that he “treated us with every kindness.” (Helen Mar Whitney, “Closing Paragraphs of Life Incidents,” Woman’s Exponent, 15 June 1881, 10:9.)
Woman’s Exponent. Salt Lake City. 1872–1914.