Times and Seasons (, Hancock Co., IL), 15 Oct. 1842, vol. 3, no. 24, pp. 943–958; edited by JS. For more complete source information, see the source note for Letter to Isaac Galland, 22 Mar. 1839.
Historical Introduction
JS, assisted by and , served as editor for the 15 October 1842 issue of the Times and Seasons, the twenty-fourth and final issue in the third volume. It is highly unlikely that JS played any significant role in writing editorial content for this particular issue, because he spent much of October in hiding in Henderson County, Illinois. Nevertheless, as the newspaper’s editor, he was ultimately responsible for its content. This was the last issue published under JS’s editorship.
The non-editorial content in the issue, which is not featured here, included an installation of the serialized “History of Joseph Smith” and several articles reprinted from other newspapers on the impact of violence and disease in various places around the world, including the outbreak of cholera in Europe, the slaughter of Chinese forces by British soldiers in China, ongoing labor protests in , and the destruction in Cuba caused by a recent storm.
Editorial content in this issue included commentary on biblical history, a rebuttal of rumors that JS had fled to , and criticism of published comparisons of the Bible with the writing of William Shakespeare. Additional editorial content included a defense of JS’s decision to hide from law enforcement officials who were seeking his arrest and his extradition to ; a passage countering opinions that the Latter-day Saints should flee , Illinois, in order to avoid future persecution; and an article presenting evidence for Christianity’s general falling away from the primitive church described in the New Testament. Furthermore, the editors included comments on reports of ’s lectures in , a description of a pamphlet wrote about the church written in German, an introduction to a brief history of Australia, and a request for church members to renew their subscriptions to the newspaper.
Note that only the editorial content created specifically for this issue of the Times and Seasons is annotated here. Articles reprinted from other papers, letters, conference minutes, and notices, are reproduced here but not annotated. Items that are stand-alone JS documents are annotated elsewhere; links are provided to these stand-alone documents.
heathen. You cannot gather grapes from thorns, nor figs from thistles. To show how far this thing has been carried we give below a specimen of the aforesaid comparisons viz:
“Oftentimes, excusing of a fault
Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse;
As patches, set upon a little breach,
Discredit more, in hiding of the fault,
Than did the fault before it was so hid.”
‘No man putteth a piece of a new cloth into an old garment: for that which is put in to fill up, taketh away from the garment, and the rent is made worse.’
-[Math. ix. 18.
“When I would pray and think, I think and pray
To several subjects: Heaven in my mouth,
And in my heart, the strong and swelling evil
Of my conception.”
‘This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.’
-[Math. xv. 8.
. . . . . . . . . “How, in one house,
Should many people, under two commands,
Hold amity?
‘And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
-[Mark iii. 25.
‘No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.’
Math. vi. 24.
“Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,
Than fall, and bruise to death.”
‘And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.’
Math. v. 40.
“Like one, that draws the model of a house,
Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
Gives o’er, and leaves his past-created cost
A naked subject to the weeping clouds,
And waste for churlish winter’s tyranny.”
‘For which of you, intending to build a tower, setteth not down first and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.’
-[Luke xiv. 28–30.
“The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous pala ces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And like this unsubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a wreck behind.”
‘But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.’
-[2 Peter iii. 10.
‘And the heavens departed as a scroll, when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains.’
-[Ref. vii. 14, 15.
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NEWS FROM THE OLD WORLD.
A call from the wilderness, a voice out of the earth, a short review of the origin and teaching of the in America, known by many by the name of Mormons—by , of said church. Read, examine, pray, and handle.
PREFACE.
The great desire, the author of this little work feels to free himself from an obligation under which he feels he is brought by more than human power, as likewise the heartfelt solicitude he feels that he might be enabled to impart to his fellow creatures, some of those truths that swell his own heart with joys unspeakable. This (and this only) induced him to recommend with great warmth this little work unto the people of , so that he might be received with that interest which the importance of this object deserves.
If in the course of human events God’s providence makes it our duty to record those strange events that are calculated to form a new era, to lay the foundation for a spiritual world, to destroy tryranny and oppression, to help forward the renowned kingdom of the Prince of Peace—then all minds are filled with astonishment and surprise.
The church of Christ or the millennial church of Jesus Christ of a 1000 years duration, has by God’s providence been established in the , by sending his holy angel to make known unto the people the fundamental [p. 949]