VICARIOUS ORDINANCE WORK IN EARLY CHURCH HISTORY
Love this gorgeous photo of the Nauvoo Temple doors
The Funeral of Seymour Brunson
D&C 124:127-130. I
give unto you my servant Brigham Young to be a president over the Twelve
traveling council; Which Twelve hold the keys to open up the authority of my
kingdom upon the four corners of the earth, and after that to send my word to
every creature. They are Heber C. Kimball, Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, Orson
Hyde, William Smith, John Taylor, John E. Page, Wilford Woodruff, Willard
Richards, George A. Smith; David Patten I have taken unto myself; behold, his
priesthood no man taketh from him; but, verily I say unto you, another may be
appointed unto the same calling. The 11 living apostles are named, and
the Lord states that he has received David Patten, the apostle killed at
Crooked River, unto himself and that he still retains his priesthood on the
other side of the veil.
D&C 124:131-132. And
again, I say unto you, I give unto you a high council, for the cornerstone of
Zion—Namely, Samuel Bent, Henry G. Sherwood, George W. Harris, Charles C. Rich,
Thomas Grover, Newel Knight, David Dort, Dunbar Wilson—Seymour Brunson I have
taken unto myself; no man taketh his priesthood, but another may be appointed
unto the same priesthood in his stead; and verily I say unto you, let my
servant Aaron Johnson be ordained unto this calling in his stead—David Fullmer,
Alpheus Cutler, William Huntington. The high councilors are named, and
the Lord states that he has received Seymour Brunson of that council, unto
himself, and that he also retains his priesthood on the other side of the veil.
Seymour Brunson was a veteran of the war of 1812, who
gave his life in the service of God. He was baptized at the age of 30 by
Soloman Hancock. (The one who wrote the cute little poem, “Once I was a
Methodist, Glory Hallelujah…”) He immediately served a mission, and was sad to
observe the persecution of those he baptized. After he moved to Kirtland, he
experienced this type of thing firsthand. “He was physically attacked and
captured by mobbers, and only narrowly escaped by putting his shoes on backward
to mislead his pursuers and treading lightly through the snow.” Eventually he
made it through the persecutions to dwell in safety in Illinois, but he chose
to return to Missouri to try to help Parley P. Pratt escape from prison. He was
not successful, but by being on this journey, he was able to help the Joseph
Smith Sr. family get safely ferried across the Mississippi to Illinois. He only
lived two more years after the Missouri persecution. He served on the Nauvoo
high council, in the Nauvoo Legion, as a colonel in the Hancock County militia,
and as a body guard for Joseph Smith. In July of 1840, he became overly chilled
after herding cattle, got very ill, and died on the 10th of August
in the home of Joseph Smith. He was 40 years old.
What is so interesting to consider when reading those two
passages of scripture which we just read, is that in Heber C. Kimball’s account
of Seymour’s death, he said, “Seymour Brunson is gone. David Patten came after
him. The room was full of angels that came…to waft him home.”
Seymour was very well-loved and had many mourners. The
procession to the gravesite, according to Brother Kimball, was a mile long.
Joseph Smith chose this very poignant occasion, attended by a very large crowd,
honoring a faithful servant of the Lord, to introduce a wonderful doctrine: Baptism
for the dead. How marvelous that he chose this occasion! Those in attendance
were lifted from sorrow to great joy. Vilate Kimball said that she had never
seen anything more joyful than the funeral procession to Seymour Brunson’s
burial, “on account of the glory that Joseph set forth.” (All this information from Susan E. Black, Who's Who in the Doctrine and Covenants,
p. 36-38)
Probably every person at the funeral had experienced the
death of an immediate family member, more likely the deaths of several immediate family members. And
the Church having been organized only 10 years, many of these had not received
baptism before they died. Baptisms for the dead began immediately, before any
order could be established, because the joy and enthusiasm of the people was so
impatient. Following the funeral sermon, Jane Neyman asked Harvey Olmstead to
baptize her in the Mississippi River in behalf of her son Cyrus, who had died
at the age of 14. Many others did the same. Vilate Kimball wrote in a letter to
Heber C., “Since this order has been preached here, the waters have been
continually troubled. During conference there were sometimes from 8 to 10
elders in the river at a time baptizing.” (Jeni & Richard Holzapfel, editors, A Woman's View: Helen Mar Whitney's Reminiscences of Early Church History, p. 179)
Wilford
Woodruff recorded that the brethren barely had time to eat or rest, since they
were constantly in the river, baptizing people for their loved ones who had
died. Emma Smith was among the first to participate. She had received word that
both her parents had died, so she was baptized for them, as well as her uncle,
her sister and several aunts. (Gracia N. Jones, Emma and Joseph: Their Divine Mission, p. 222)
Later,
the guideline was set forth that you had to be the same sex as the person whose
work you were doing, so those who were not done that way were redone.
Commandment to Build a Temple
The following January, 1841 was when Section 124 was
received, in which the saints were commanded to build the Nauvoo Temple for the performance of baptisms for the dead. D&C 124:28-31. 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. For a baptismal font there is not upon the
earth, that they, my saints, may be baptized for those who are dead— For this
ordinance belongeth to my house, and cannot be acceptable to me [outside a temple], only in the days
of your poverty, wherein ye are not able to build a house unto me. But I
command you, all ye my saints, to build a house unto me; and I grant unto you a
sufficient time to build a house unto me; and during this time your baptisms
shall be acceptable unto me.
Outdoor baptisms for the dead continued
until October 3rd of that year when Joseph said that they now needed
to wait until they could do it in the temple. The baptismal font was dedicated
the next month.
Elijah Fordham, Builder of the Font
July 22, 1839 was the day
of miraculous healing at the site of the future town of Nauvoo. Many, many of
the saints were deathly ill with malaria. Joseph Smith called upon the Lord in
mighty prayer, and went forth to heal all those that he and his wife were
caring for in their home and in tents in their yard. Then he continued on
through the makeshift community and into Montrose. He went to Brigham Young’s
and healed him; he called Wilford Woodruff along after passing by his door. Without a word,
they crossed the city square and entered the house of Elijah Fordham. Elijah
was within minutes of death; he was speechless and unconscious. After rousing
him and speaking with him briefly, Joseph commanded him in the name of Jesus of
Nazareth to rise up and walk. Elijah immediately was healed, and jumped up out
of bed, kicking off his foot poultices, asked for some bread and milk, and
after consuming it, put on his hat and continued along with them down the
street to heal others.
The baptismal font in the basement of the Nauvoo Temple
was mounted on 12 oxen and built of Wisconsin pine by Elijah Fordham.
Apparently his healing blessing “stuck,” as he outlived all those who were
there to witness it. He died in 1879 in Wellsville, Utah.
Gravestone of Elijah Fordham, in Wellsville Cemetery
The remains of the baptismal font at the Nauvoo Temple foundation site in 1997.
Below: the rebuilt font
Samuel Rolfe, Temple Carpenter and Assistant
Doorkeeper
D&C 124:142. And
again, I say unto you, Samuel Rolfe and his counselors for priests, and the
president of the teachers and his counselors, and also the president of the
deacons and his counselors, and also the president of the stake and his
counselors.
Thomas B. Marsh, an apostle who had
become a bitter apostate over a pint of cream, upon returning to the Church
with a broken and repentant heart, quoted David from the Bible and said, “I
would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than to dwell in the tents of
wickedness.” (Black, p. 189) Well, Samuel Rolfe was the personification of that
desire. In fact, he was not even a doorkeeper in the house of God, he was an assistant doorkeeper of the Kirtland
Temple. He was not a prominent figure in church history. But he was always
steadily serving where he could. When in December of 1835, the Prophet Joseph
was in financial distress, several of the brethren gave him money. The Prophet
was so grateful, he itemized them and their donations in his History of the Church and wrote along
with it, “My heart swells with gratitude inexpressible when I realize the great
condescension of the heavenly Father, in opening the hearts of these my beloved
brethren to administer so liberally to my wants. And I ask God, in the name of
Jesus Christ, to multiply blessings without number upon their heads…And whether
my days are many or few, whether in life or in death, I say in my heart, O
Lord, let me enjoy the society of such brethren.” Elijah Fordham and Samuel
Rolfe are both on that list, Elijah having given $5.25, and Samuel $1.25. (Joseph Smith, History of the Church
2:327) At the time, Samuel was a carpenter, working on the Kirtland Temple.
When the saints began the Nauvoo Temple, Samuel was
called to be one of the full-time carpenters there as well. The Nauvoo Temple was finished and dedicated room by room
and story by story. The baptismal font, which Elijah Fordham had built, was in
the basement to symbolize dying before being reborn, and therefore it was the first part
completed. A very unusual blessing took place there for Samuel Rolfe. He was
seriously afflicted with a “felon,” an acute and painful inflammation of the
deeper tissues of a finger. This would, of course, be a real problem for a
carpenter working on the temple. Samuel
Rolfe apparently did not keep a journal, nor did any of his descendants write
his history, as far as we know, but according to Edward Stevenson’s biography,
Samuel Rolfe was promised that if he would dip his finger in the baptismal
font, he would be healed. He did so, and was healed.
Just before Joseph’s death, he asked for volunteers to go
west scouting for a new home for the Saints. Samuel was one of the few who
volunteered. Because of the martyrdom, they did not go. Instead Samuel served
as a bishop in Winter Quarters, and a captain of a pioneer company. He died in
Utah at the age of 72. (Black, p. 250-251)
The Triumph of the Nauvoo Temple
Samuel Rolfe and Elijah Fordham are two of the many, many
early Saints who did a great work behind the scenes. The Nauvoo Temple itself
did not last. Although ordinances were performed in each room as it was
finished and dedicated, the entire temple wasn’t finally dedicated until May 1st,
1846, after most of the saints had already left Nauvoo, and as you can see by
the For Sale sign, it was placed on the market that very month. A few years
later, an arsonist burned it down, and the stones were gradually carted away to
be used in other buildings in the area.
But it was not a tragedy, it was a triumph. Because of
the temple-building efforts of Samuel and Elijah and the others, many members
of the Church were able to have the great joy of receiving their temple
ordinances, and being baptized for their deceased family members before they
headed out west. It would be 31 years before there would be another temple on
the earth (in St. George, Utah).
GENEALOGY AND ORDINANCE WORK IN OUR DAY
One Genealogist’s Dream
Fast forward to the year 2001. On February 20th, in Lindon, Utah a White church member named Natalie Harris had a remarkable
dream. In her dream, she saw a lone Black man. Turning and looking back, she saw a huge line
of Black people. She said, “I go up to the man leaning against the wall and
say, 'I know what you want,' and then I turn and all of the people come running
toward me.”
She woke up then, with an overwhelming feeling of love. She got
right up, went to her computer genealogy database with some names she had heard
in her dream and found an ancestor who had a large plantation and many enslaved servants.
She knew those were the people she had seen in her dream, begging her to do
their work and connect their families.
She had a very busy week and couldn’t get right on it, so
she made a promise in prayer that she would start doing the research in one
week. In the meantime, she asked around among her genealogy friends about how
to find records of slaves. No one knew.
February 27, 2001 was exactly one week from the day she
had had her dream and made her promise. She sat down at the computer to start
the work and was interrupted by a phone call from her husband, who was
“absolutely flabbergasted.” On his way into work he had heard the press
announcement that the Church had completed their research on the Freedman Bank
records, and was now releasing a CD with names of 484,000 former enslaved people to
anyone who wanted to buy it for $6.95!
The Freedman’s Bank Savings
and Trust Company was a charter formed after the Civil War to help former enslaved people and Black soldiers with their new financial responsibilities as freed men.
Unfortunately, due to mismanagement and fraud, the bank collapsed nine years
later, adding more tragedy to the lives of the investors. But a wonderful
treasure trove remained in the records of that bank, worth much more than the money: genealogy! Not only were the
depositors’ names and finances recorded, but the names of their spouses,
children, parents, in-laws, and other relatives, including details about who
had been sold away into slavery elsewhere. There were even oral histories
taken.
How the Freedman Bank CD Came to Be
A little more than a decade before Natalie's dream, the BYU TV station wanted to do a documentary series on genealogy and
entitle it “Ancestors.” They appealed to the Public Broadcasting Service to get a grant, but the woman in
charge of the grants thought there would be no audience for a series on
genealogy. To surmount this problem, KBYU decided to present her with her own
genealogy, so she could see how fascinating it could be. They assigned an
employee, Marie Taylor, to do this genealogy, but Marie found it to be
incredibly difficult because the woman had African ancestry. Marie searched
everywhere for the information, but it wasn’t until she came across the
Freedman Bank records that she found the links she needed. She completed the work, the woman was deeply moved,
and KBYU got the grant.
Marie, however, was just getting started. She had found
that reading these Freedman Bank records was like translating Ancient Egyptian
hieroglyphics. They were extremely difficult to wade through, but Marie could
see how incredibly valuable they were.
An example of a record from the Freedman Bank
Darius Gray
She enlisted Darius (pronounced Da-RYE-us) Gray, a prominant Church
member with African ancestry, to help her to find a way to index this information and make it
available. It was going to take an enormous amount of work, so they looked for
groups who would help them, and one group after another fell through. Finally,
they turned to the South Point Family History Center. The South Point Family History Center is located within the walls and bars of the Utah State Penitentiary.
They called upon the
prisoners to volunteer to help with this huge name extraction, and the prisoners
clamored to work on the project.
It took 11 years and the labor of more than 550
prisoners. Those who volunteered and qualified were required to attend church
meetings of their choice, read the scriptures daily, and pray morning and
evening. They called themselves the “spiritual parole board,” as they felt they
were letting prisoners go free. But they themselves were also being freed.
Recidivism (relapse into crime) among those who worked on this project
plummeted. Commonly inmates take a personality profile when they come into
prison. One man’s profile was so different after he had worked on the project
for a while that he didn’t test as the same person! Another prisoner who begged
to work on the project had received a blessing the night before he left home
for prison in which he was promised the prison would become a temple to him.
The symbolism doesn’t stop there: The project was
finished on Independence Day 2000.
The CD was released to the public in
February of 2001 to commemorate Black History Month. The original 10,000 CDs
sold out in days and another 20,000 were pressed.
Darius Gray said,
“The whole
thing reminds me of an old Negro spiritual: “When the Lord Gets Ready, You’ve
Got to Move.”
An executive at the Distribution Center said,
“I don’t know of
any other time during my years here that we have ever released a product that has
given our telephone operators the kind of impressions and feedback from our
customers, both member and particularly non-members, that this product is
producing. We have people literally weeping on the phone and wanting to know
who we are, what other products we have, why we do this type of thing, why it
doesn’t cost more money.” (This information on the Freedman Bank story comes from Maurine Proctor,
"Let My People Go: The Healing Story Behind the Freedman Bank Records," published online in Meridian Magazine, accessed July 2013.)
Our Great Commission to Free the Prisoners
The Utah State Prison inmates at the South Point Family
History Center join Samuel Rolfe and Elijah Fordham as backstage workers who
each did a little bit, within their own capacity, to redeem the dead.
When Joseph Smith gave that sermon at Seymour Brunson’s
funeral, he quoted the words of Paul to the Corinthians regarding baptism for
the dead. Other than that little bit of vicarious work mentioned there by Paul,
the redeeming of the dead has been left almost entirely to our dispensation. It
wasn’t until Christ preached to the spirits in prison after his death that the
missionary work among them commenced. Then, here on the earth, the Great
Apostasy occurred, and not until the Restoration through Joseph Smith could the
ordinances for those converted in the Spirit World be begun.
Is it surprising at all, then, to realize that although
Priesthood ordinances and offices were revealed line upon line as the Church
grew and developed, the importance of the work for the dead was pressed upon
the young Joseph Smith by the Angel Moroni before a temple was built, before
the Priesthood was restored, before the Church was organized, even 4 years
before he took the golden plates from the hill? Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith
in his bedroom three times in one night preparing him for the great work of the
Restoration, giving him instructions and quoting scriptures, and each time, the
first scripture he quoted was Malachi 4:
JS-H 1:36-39 –
“After telling me these things, he commenced quoting the prophecies of the Old
Testament. He first quoted part of the third chapter of Malachi; and he quoted
also the fourth or last chapter of the same prophecy, though with a little
variation from the way it reads in our Bibles. Instead of quoting the first
verse as it reads in our books, he quoted it thus: For behold, the day cometh
that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly
shall burn as stubble; for they that come shall burn them, saith the Lord of
Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. And again, he quoted
the fifth verse thus: Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the
hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of
the Lord. He also quoted the next verse differently: And he shall plant in the
hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the
children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would
be utterly wasted at his coming.”
D&C 128:17 “And again, in
connection with this quotation I will give you a quotation from one of the
prophets, who had his eye fixed on the restoration of the priesthood, the
glories to be revealed in the last days, and in an especial manner this most
glorious of all subjects belonging to the everlasting gospel, namely, the
baptism for the dead; for Malachi says, last chapter, verses 5th and 6th:
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and
dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the
children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite
the earth with a curse.”
Challenge
The work for the dead is the most glorious
subject of the gospel. Why? Because this doctrine shows so clearly the love and
mercy of God for all of his children. This glorious gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of second chances.
Every bit of research and ordinance work you do (even
your own ordinances!) welds this link. Each family night lesson you teach about
an ancestor, every photo you put in an album (or a shoebox – but labeled!),
every family reunion you drag your kids to, every Memorial Day gravesite visit,
every journal entry knits this eternal project together. I hope you can see how
many things you are already doing in the spirit of Elijah. Pat yourself on the
back and continue! If you feel you could do more, pick one additional thi
ng that you will do this year and get started.
D&C 127:4 – And again, verily
thus saith the Lord: Let the work of my temple, and all the works which I have
appointed unto you, be continued on and not cease; and let your diligence, and
your perseverance, and patience, and your works be redoubled, and you shall in
nowise lose your reward, saith the Lord of Hosts.
