“A resting-place for the weary traveler”

Camrey Bagley Fox and I spent the first part of the day being filmed in conversation together down at the Mansion House, mostly inside, and then on the grounds of the Smith Homestead, across from the Bidamon Stable and, much more importantly, the adjacent Nauvoo House.

Joseph and Emma lived in the Mansion House with their family and with his widowed mother — in part of it, anyway, since the front portion of the building was managed as a hotel by Ebenezer Robinson after January 1844 — from August 1843 until his martyrdom the following 27 June.

On 19 January 1841, Joseph Smith received a revelation that instructed the Latter-day Saints to construct a boarding house or hotel in Nauvoo:

And it shall be for a house for boarding, a house that strangers may come from afar to lodge therein; therefore let it be a good house, worthy of all acceptation, that the weary traveler may find health and safety while he shall contemplate the word of the Lord; and the cornerstone I have appointed for Zion. . . .

And let the name of that house be called Nauvoo House; and let it be a delightful habitation for man, and a resting-place for the weary traveler, that he may contemplate the glory of Zion, and the glory of this, the cornerstone thereof (Doctrine and Covenants 124:23, 60).

I suppose that the Hotel Utah was built more or less for the same purpose, directly adjacent to and overlooking the Salt Lake Temple and Temple Square.

It occurs to me, too, that, in a sense and for a brief time, Joseph Smith himself was the weary traveler who found a resting-place in the Nauvoo House.  “I roll the burden and responsibility of leading this church off from my shoulders on to yours,” he told the Twelve in March 1844, shortly before he was killed. “Now, round up your shoulders and stand under it like men; for the Lord is going to let me rest awhile.”

In the same revelation, the Saints were commanded to build a temple:

[B]uild a house to my name, for the Most High to dwell therein. For there is not a place found on earth that he may come to and restore again that which was lost unto you, or which he hath taken away, even the fulness of the priesthood.

And let the name of that house be called Nauvoo House; and let it be a delightful habitation for man, and a resting-place for the weary traveler, that he may contemplate the glory of Zion, and the glory of this, the cornerstone thereof (Doctrine and Covenants 124:27c-28)

Construction work on the Nauvoo House continued until the murder of Joseph and Hyrum in 1844.  At that time, Brigham Young and the Twelve, knowing that the Saints’ continued sojourn in Illinois would likely be short, pulled  resources from it in order to concentrate on completion of the Nauvoo Temple, which they viewed as far more fundamental and important.

I’ll mention three significant historical facts about the Nauvoo House, which commands a beautiful view of the Mississippi River:

1. After Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were murdered by a mob in June 1844, a public funeral was held in which coffins filled with sand were buried in Nauvoo’s cemetery.  That night, their bodies were secretly buried in the cellar of the unfinished Nauvoo House to prevent them from being desecrated.  (There was, literally, still a price on Joseph’s head in Missouri, and rumors spread that grave robbers would seek to claim the bounty.)   Later, the bodies were removed and buried close to the Homestead and, even later still, they were relocated to the nearby Smith Family Cemetery.
2. Joseph Smith placed the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon in the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House in 1841.  When, late in Emma’s life, the building was renovated,Lewis Bidamon, who was her second husband,  removed the original Book of Mormon manuscript from that cornerstone. Unfortunately, water had seeped into the stone and badly damaged the manuscript,  Approximately seventy percent was destroyed, and fragmented pieces were given away by the Bidamons to visitors.
3. The building was only completed long after the Saints had left Nauvoo (though with neither the dimensions nor the purpose originally envisioned).  Emma Smith moved into the Nauvoo House (aka “Riverside Mansion”) in 1871, and it was there that she died on 3o April 1879.

Jonn Claybaugh has kindly shared yet another set of his concise notes for students and teachers of this year’s Come, Follow Me curriculum.

This was, I think, a good talk.  I hope that many listened:

• “Overcome Adversity by Seeking and Trusting God, Kalani Sitake Teaches: ‘God has a plan for you. It’s important to realize that there is a divine design for us,’ BYU football coach says in a devotional message”
• “‘I was broken,’ BYU coach Kalani Sitake says at devotional, but God’s divine design healed him: Football coach talks about the pain of his parents’ divorce and the loss of his dream to play professional football, and for the first time names the hero who changed his life”
• “What Kalani Sitake said about giving a BYU devotional”

This is interesting, but I’m honestly not quite sure what to make of it:  “Map Shows US States Where Religion Is Disappearing Fastest”  Is religion really disappearing rapidly in Utah?  Is it a proportional thing, a function of increasing secular in-migration?  Rapidly growing religious alienation?  Again, though, it’s clear in any case that Utah has become a genuine mission field.

From the magazine Reason, a follow-up to the link about the effectiveness of masking that I posted yesterday:  “Do Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin Work?  Five years after Donald Trump declared a national COVID-19 emergency, here’s what the research says.”

“After five years of intensive research and debate, the initial hopes that these off-the-shelf compounds might offer significant benefits for the treatment of COVID-19 were not fulfilled. While some data suggest that taking hydroxychloroquine modestly lowers the risk of infection, most recent evidence concludes both compounds are largely ineffective as treatments for COVID-19 infections.”

If religion really does disappear, we will no longer need to face such abominations and horrors as this:  “The Church of Jesus Christ Provides Humanitarian Aid After Storm Strikes Argentina: Bahía Blanca takes the brunt of flooding rains”  Let them eat cake.

Posted from Nauvoo, Illinois