Footnotes
JS, Journal, 1 Feb. 1836.
JS, Journal, 6 Feb. 1836.
JS, Journal, 6 Feb. 1836; Kirtland Elders Quorum, “Record,” 6 Feb. 1836; see also Revelation 10:11; and Answers to Questions, between ca. 4 and ca. 20 Mar. 1832 [D&C 77:14]. According to the Kirtland elders quorum record, at least ninety-seven elders had been anointed with oil from 28 January to 4 February 1836. The elders quorum minutes for 6 February record that JS and his counselors in the presidency “came and sealed our anointing by prayer and shout of Hosanna” and then “gave us some instructions and left us.” Alvah Beman then addressed those present, and “several spoke and there seemed to be a cloud of darkness in the room.” After Oliver Cowdery and Hyrum Smith came into the room to resolve the problem, “the cloud was broken and some shouted, Hosanna and others spake with tongues.” (Kirtland Elders Quorum, “Record,” 28 Jan.–6 Feb. 1836; see also JS, Journal, 3 Apr. 1836.)
Kirtland Elders Quorum. “A Record of the First Quorurum of Elders Belonging to the Church of Christ: In Kirtland Geauga Co. Ohio,” 1836–1838, 1840–1841. CCLA.
Kirtland Elders Quorum, “Record,” 11 Feb. 1836.
Kirtland Elders Quorum. “A Record of the First Quorurum of Elders Belonging to the Church of Christ: In Kirtland Geauga Co. Ohio,” 1836–1838, 1840–1841. CCLA.
Cowdery, Diary, 12 Feb. 1836.
Cowdery, Oliver. Diary, Jan.–Mar. 1836. CHL. MS 3429. Also available as Leonard J. Arrington, “Oliver Cowdery’s Kirtland, Ohio, ‘Sketch Book,’” BYU Studies 12 (Summer 1972): 410–426.
JS, Journal, Minutes, 12 Feb. 1836.
See JS, Journal, 12 and 14 Feb. 1836.
JS, Journal, 12 and 14 Feb. 1836.
The copy of the minutes in JS’s journal specifies that JS “met in the School room in the chapel in company with the several quorums.” The “several quorums” likely included those entities listed in the first resolution in the featured text. These several quorums also constituted the church’s “grand council,” which met regularly during the months when Missouri church leaders were in Kirtland to prepare for the March dedication of the House of the Lord. (JS, Journal, 13 Jan. 1836, and Minutes, 12 Feb. 1836; Minutes, 13 Jan. 1836.)
The minutes in JS’s journal state the following: “I then arose and made some remarks upon the object of our meeting, which were as follows— first that many are desiring to be ordained to the ministry, who are not called and consequntly the Lord is displeased.”a This may have been connected to the ongoing difficulties and questions raised about ordinations to the elders quorum.b It is also possible that JS suggested here that the Lord was displeased that so many who desired ordination had not adequately prepared for the ministry and were, therefore, not properly called and ordained to the work. As a February 1829 revelation stated, “If ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work.”c The journal continues: “Secondly, many already have been ordained who ought [not] to hold official stations in the church because they dishonour themselves and the church and bring persecution swiftly upon us, in consequence of their zeal without k[n]owledge— I requested the quorum’s to take some measures to regulate the same.”d The “official stations” likely referred to various priesthood offices. Church leaders had cautioned local leaders two years earlier to be “exceedingly careful” when they ordained an elder to the ministry. “Let it be a faithful man,” they counseled, and they admonished the local authorities to instruct those ordained to “avoid contentions and vain disputes.”e In a 2 October 1835 letter instructing the “elders, traveling through the world,” JS cautioned against those who had a “zeal not according to knowledge” and who “in the heat of enthusiasm, taught and said many things which are derogatory to the genuine character and principles of the church.”f
(aJS, Journal, Minutes, 12 Feb. 1836. bSee Letter from the Presidency of Elders, 29 Jan. 1836. cRevelation, Feb. 1829 [D&C 4:3]. dJS, Journal, Minutes, 12 Feb. 1836. eLetter to the Church, not after 18 Dec. 1833, italics in original; see also Romans 10:2. fLetter to the Elders of the Church, 2 Oct. 1835.)According to the minutes in JS’s journal, JS “proposed some resolutions and remarked to the brethren that the subject was now before them and open for discussion[.] The subject was taken up and discussed by President’s S[idney] Rigdon O[liver] Cowdery Eldr. M[artin] Harris and some others, and resolutions drafted, by my scribe [Warren Parrish] who served as clerk on the occasion— read and rejected— it was then proposed that I should indite resolutions which I did as follows.” (JS, Journal, Minutes, 12 Feb. 1836.)