![\"Bamyan](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2023\/01\/622px-Bamiyan_the_rockwall_with_the_statues_of_Buddha_in_1977_before_the_great_loss._-_panoramio.jpg\")
<\/a>(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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But, first, I call your attention to a couple of my typically mean-spirited and buffoonish crimes against humanity:<\/p>\n
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- \u201cBeautiful Patience,\u201d<\/a> written by Daniel C. Peterson.\u00a0 \u201cAbstract:<\/strong>\u00a0Believers in the God of Abraham \u2014 who include not only Jews and Christians but also Muslims \u2014 are exhorted to call upon him every day, as well as in times of need. We are promised that he will respond to petitionary prayers. Moreover, we are assured that, in the end, believers will prosper, that their faith or trust in him will prove justified. But we are not promised that rewards, compensation, or justice will come to us on our mortal timetable \u2014 and this raises sometimes burningly acute questions about Providence and even, for more than a\u00a0few, about either God\u2019s benevolence, his care, or his sheer existence. So we are also exhorted to be patient. And that sets us up for many of mortality\u2019s greatest tests. In the meantime, while faithfully waiting for God\u2019s promises to be fulfilled, we ourselves are to work toward their fulfillment \u201cwith all [our] heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters\u201d (Colossians\u00a03:23, NIV).<\/em><\/li>\n
- I also have a quite unrelated article that just went up in Meridian Magazine<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cArguing for the Divinity of Jesus.\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Read them, if you\u2019re up for stress and the soul-crushing horror.\u00a0 But you should probably be sitting first, and with a heart specialist nearby.<\/p>\n
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![\"Pendle](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2019\/05\/800px-Pendle_Hill_above_mist_235-0004.jpg\")
<\/a>The first Latter-day Saint baptisms in England were performed in the River Ribble, in Lancashire. In this Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph, a mist lies over the Ribble Valley. Beyond that mist stands Pendle Hill.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, though, on to my principal subject for the day:\u00a0 As I\u2019ve mentioned here before, I recently re-read Eugene England, Brother Brigham<\/em> (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980), and thoroughly, thoroughly, enjoyed it.\u00a0 I was consistently amazed at the similarity of Gene\u2019s opinion of Brigham Young to mine.\u00a0 But then, maybe the similarity shouldn\u2019t have been such a surprise.\u00a0 It may be that Gene\u2019s view of Brigham Young was a formative influence on mine in the first place.\u00a0 After all, I first read it when it came from the press more than four decades ago, and I\u2019ve re-read it at least once or twice since, prior to this last time.<\/p>\n
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One of the things that we intend to do as part of our forthcoming \u201cSix Days in August\u201d film project<\/a> \u2014 at least as we currently envision it \u2014 is to illustrate how the Twelve were trained and equipped, without their being aware of it, for their eventual assumption of the overall leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>.\u00a0 In its earliest days, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was assigned the responsibility for missionary work, which is to say that its focus was external to the Church.\u00a0 \u201cDomestically,\u201d as it were \u2014 that is, within the Church \u2014 \u201cthe high council\u201d (which we now have in every stake) was entrusted with the management of affairs below the First Presidency, as distinct from \u201cthe traveling high council composed of the twelve apostles\u201d (Doctrine and Covenants 102:30, dating to 1835).\u00a0 \u00a0 Here is a passage from Eugene England on that subject, specifically refer to their famous (and very successful) mission to the British Isles:<\/p>\n
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The winding-up actions of the Quorum, reported especially in their final epistle to the Church members in Britain, were directly responsive to Joseph\u2019s counsel and well exemplify the unity and effectiveness the apostles had achieved, in good part through their increasing fidelity to him as their Prophet.\u00a0 Joseph Smith was extremely well pleased with the accomplishments implied in their epistle \u2014 both the great work that had been achieved and that which still lay before the British Saints \u2014 and he responded quickly and dramatically to the proven quality and solidarity of the Twelve and the demonstrated devotion and ability of the Quorum\u2019s president.\u00a0 A few days after Brigham\u2019s return from England the Prophet visited him in his home and conveyed a revelation to him:<\/p>\n
Dear and well-beloved brother, Brigham Young, verily thus saith the Lord unto you: My servant Brigham, it is no more required at your hand to leave your family as in times past, for your offering is acceptable to me.\u00a0 I have seen your labor and toil in journeyings for my name.\u00a0 I therefore command you to send my word abroad, and take especial care of your family from this time, henceforth and forever.\u00a0 Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n
And a month later, on August 16, 1841, at a special conference of the Church presided over by President Young, Joseph Smith made the momentous announcement \u201cthat the time had come when the Twelve should be called upon to stand in their place next to the first Presidency, and attend to the settling of emigrants and the business of the Church at the stakes.\u201d\u00a0 Accordingly, the Twelve were established in their proper governing role over all the Church, and Brother Brigham was unknowingly embarked on the course which would lead beyond Carthage and would make him the Church\u2019s second prophet and president and its leader to the west.<\/p>\n
But for now he could only be grateful for a relatively stationary and peaceful ministry.\u00a0 On April 25, 1841, on the ship coming home, he tells us, \u201cI felt as though I could not endure menny such voiges as I had indured for 2 years . . . and ware it not for the power of God and his tendere mercy I should despare.\u00a0 The single entry for 1842 in the two diaries covering this period is:<\/p>\n
- I also have a quite unrelated article that just went up in Meridian Magazine<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cArguing for the Divinity of Jesus.\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n