Day in the Life

May 29, 1847

Journal Entry

May 29, 1847 ~ Saturday

29th A cold rainy morning. At 10 oclok the horn was blown
to gather up the Horses & cattle which took more than an hours
After which President Young called the camp together and
Required each captain to seperate or calle out his men & when
it was found all was present except two who had gone a
hunting He then Addressed them, sumthing in the following
language. I think I will take for my text to preach my sermon
from, I am about to revolt from travling with this camp
any further with the spirit they now possess, I had rather
risk myself among the savages with ten men that are men
of faith, men of mighty prayer men of God, than to be with
this whole camp when they forget God & turn there hearts
to folley & wickedness, yea I had rather be alone, & I am
now resolved not to go any further with the camp unless
you will covenant to humble yourselves before the Lord &
serve him & quit your folley & wickedness, for A week past
nearly the whole camp has been card playing, chequres
& dominnoes, have occupied the Attention of the brethren

& dancing, & Nigering & Hoeing down all has been the bet
continually, now it is quite time to quit it, & there has been
trials & law suits upon evry nonsensical thing & if these things
are suffered to go on it will be but a short time befor you
will be fighting knocking each other down & taking life
& it is high time it was stoped. I do not want to hear any
more such reportts as I herd last Sunday, of mens going to
meeting & preaching to the rest after he had played cards
untill meeting time. you are A putty set of men going
to seek out A location among the mountains for a resting place
of the Saints, even the whole Church of God who have been
driven out from the gentiles & rejected of them And after
you have esstablished A location you are then going out to preah
the gospel
, seal salvation upon the House of Israel, & gather
the nations. How would you look if they should know your
conduct & Ask you what did you do when you went to
seek out Zion, & find A resting place for the Saints whare
the standard of the Kingdom of God could be reared & her
banners unfurled for the nations to gather unto, dudt [but] you
spend A good deal of your time in dancing pitching quare[l],
Jumping wrastleing &c yes, yes, did you play cards, dice
checkers & dominoes O! yes, what could you do with you-
rself, why you would shrink from the glance of the yeyes
of God Angels & men even wicked men, then are you
not ashamed of yourselves for practicing these things
yes you are & you must quit it. After speaking sumwhat
lengthy upon these matters He called the Twelve together
the High priest, Seventies & Elders, & found to be 8
of the quorum of the Twelve, 18 High Priest, 80 Seventies
& 8 Elders After which President Young said unto the
Twelve If you are willing to Humble yourselves before
the Lord & covenant to do right & walk humble before
him, make it manifest by raising the right hand
when each one raised their hand, the same question
was put to the High Priest, Seventies, Elders & Members
& all universally covenanted with uplifted hand to humble
themselves before the Lord repent of their sins & keep
his commandments. President Young then spoke of those
who was not in the Church As there were sum present that
they would be protected in their rights but they must
not introduce wickedness in the camp for it would not
be sufferd. He then spoke of the standard & ensign that
would be reared in Zion, to govern the Kingdom of God
[FIGURE] And the nations of the earth for evry nation
would bow the knea & evry tongue confess that
JESUS was the Christ [Mosiah 27:31] And this will be the
standard. The Kingdom of God & his Laws & Judgment in
{the hands of his servants Ahman Christ} And on the standard would be a flag
of evry nation under heaven so their would be an invitation to all
Nations under heaven to come unto Zion, the Saints would have
to keep the Celestial law, And all nations & religions would
have to bow the knee to God And Accknowledge that Jesus was
the Christ, but they would not be under the necessity of
being Baptized or embracing the gospel of Christ, but
they must acknowledge the right & reign of Christ

then if they felt disposed to reject the gospel & be damned they had
A right to, & the Saints or inhabitants of Zion had no right to take
from them their religion or persecute them on account of it or
trample upon their rights any way, neither should other nations
or religions trample upon the rights & privileges of the Saints who serve
& obey the Lord of [and] Keep his commandments neither would that
be suffered as it has been in times past. And upon this principle
All men or religions may dwell with us in peace, if they will
keep the outward laws of the kingdom of [God] so as to acknowledg his
name & his right to reign, & let us keep the law of the gospel &
obey his commandments undisturbed. After making other rem-
arks He left the meeting in the hands of the rest of the Twelve
Elder Kimball followed & remarked that what President Young said
it was the word of the Lord unto him & was Just as much binding
upon him as though it was A written Revelation And it was just
as much binding upon the whole camp as it was upon him & urged
the Saints to give heed to the teachings that were given.

O Pratt followed & said that if the Saints had leasure hours
that they could spend them to much better Advantage than playing
cards As there was A world of Knowledge to be obtained & evry leasure
moment should be improved toin storeing the mind with some sciensce or
learning some good principle And acknowledged the teachings we
had recieved to be of the Lord

W. Woodruff Arose & said He had some things in his heart he
wished to say, that A Burned child dreaded the fire. He had not
forgotton his Journey in the Camp of 1834 And should He
live to the age of Matheusala He should not forget the hour when
the Prophet & Seer Joseph Smith stood upon the waggon
wheel & Addressed that camp & said that because they had
not Harkened to his councel but disobeyed, & transgressed
from time to time, that the die was cast & Judgment
must come that we should be visited by the destroying Angels
And so we were & more than twenty of our numbers
fell by the stroke & we all suffered much in our feelings
And I pray the Lord I may not see another such a time
And I would now Advise my brethren to be careful in keeping the coven[an]t
ywe have made lest by & by the word of the Lord come unto us as in
the days of Joseph & we cannot escape his judgment. I would
Advise all the Brethren who have got cards to burn them up for
Also checkers & dominoes, for if you keep your covenants you
have made you will have no time to use them & they will be
useless lomber on your hands. if you keep them for your children
they will ownly prove a curse to them. And my prayer to God
is thayt we all may be enabled to keep all our covenants
with the Lord & each other I rejoice that the watchman
upon the walls or in our mids are quick to comprehend & warn
us of evil & reprove us when wrong that we may de saved & do
the will of God

Br S. Markham Arose confessed his sins for card playing on sunday
before he went to preach & asked forgivness, then the camp
dispersed to there waggons & we all started on our Journey
Br G. A. Smith & myself went together to pilot out the road
we travled 8 1/2 miles & camped for the night in good feed
though the whole country was vary barren that we had
[page torn] [come] through. we passed today through layers of good

sand stone in the edge of the Bluffs one large rock resembled
the Hull of A steemboat loaded with freight so I named it
stone steem boat bluff. it commenced raining before we
camped it was vary cold. distance of the day 8 1/2 m
during the evening Br B. Young went out with the Twelve
& had Prayes

People

Browse people Wilford Woodruff mentioned on this day in his journal. Click on the person's name to view a short bio and other pages they are mentioned on or click on "View in Family Search" to view their FamilySearch profile.

Young, Brigham
1 Jun 1801 - 29 Aug 1877
3409 mentions
Apostle, Family
Smith, George Albert
26 Jun 1817 - 1 Sep 1875
1425 mentions
Apostle, Missionary
Kimball, Heber Chase
14 Jun 1801 - 22 Jun 1868
1445 mentions
Apostle
Smith, Joseph (Jr.)
23 Dec 1805 - 27 Jun 1844
29 mentions
Scriptural Figure
Pratt, Orson
19 Sep 1811 - 3 Oct 1881
1082 mentions
Apostle
Markham, Stephen
9 Feb 1800 - 10 Mar 1878

Quotes

View selected quotes from this page in Wilford Woodruff's journal.

during the evening President Young called at my fire & seeing several of the brethering playing dominoes in a waggon near by began to teach by saying that the devil was getting power over the camp that for several days past nearly the whole camp had drank into a spirit of card, checker, & domino playing & dancing & the spirit of folley & if they did not spedily repent their works, labours, & journey would be in vain that we should not accomplish the object for which we had come but should be thwarted in it. He said the Camp did not quarel any to be shure for the devel would not set them to quarreling as long as he could draw them away gradually from duty & fill them with nonsens & folley, for the devil was vary cuning in dra- wing away the people of God.
~ Brigham Young
Br Young wrote some of the word of the Lord concerning the camp & expressed his views & feelings concerning the camp that they must spedily repent or they would be cursed, that they were forgetting their mission & he had rather travel with 10 righteous men who would keep the commandments of God than the whole camp while in a carless manner & forgetting God
~ Brigham Young
I am about to revolt from travling with this camp any further with the spirit they now possess, I had rather risk myself among the savages with ten men that are men of faith, men of mighty prayer men of God, than to be with this whole camp when they forget God & turn there hearts to folley & wickedness, yea I had rather be alone, & I am now resolved not to go any further with the camp unless you will covenant to humble yourselves before the Lord & serve him & quit your folley & wickedness, for a week past nearly the whole camp has been card playing, chequres & dominnoes, have occupied the attention of the brethren
~ Brigham Young
President Young said unto the Twelve If you are willing to humble yourselves before the Lord & covenant to do right & walk humble before him, make it manifest by raising the right hand when each one raised their hand, the same question was put to the High Priest, Seventies, Elders & Members & all universally covenanted with uplifted hand to humble themselves before the Lord repent of their sins & keep his commandments.
~ Brigham Young
He then spoke of the standard & ensign that would be reared in Zion, to govern the Kingdom of God [FIGURE] and the nations of the earth for evry nation would bow the knea & evry tongue confess that JESUS was the Christ and this will be the standard. The Kingdom of God & his Laws & Judgment in {the hands of his servants Ahman Christ} And on the standard would be a flag of evry nation under heaven so their would be an invitation to all Nations under heaven to come unto Zion, the Saints would have to keep the Celestial law, and all nations & religions would have to bow the knee to God and accknowledge that Jesus was the Christ, but they would not be under the necessity of being baptized or embracing the Gospel of Christ, but they must acknowledge the right & reign of Christ
~ Brigham Young
if they felt disposed to reject the gospel & be damned they had a right to, & the Saints or inhabitants of Zion had no right to take from them their religion or persecute them on account of it or trample upon their rights any way, neither should other nations or religions trample upon the rights & privileges of the Saints who serve & obey the Lord of [and] Keep his Commandments neither would that be suffered as it has been in times past. And upon this principle all men or religions may dwell with us in peace, if they will keep the outward laws of the kingdom of [God] so as to acknowledg his name & his right to reign & let us keep the law of the gospel & obey his commandments undisturbed.
~ Brigham Young
O Pratt followed & said that if the Saints had leasure hours that they could spend them to much better advantage than playing Cards as there was a world of Knowledge to be obtained & evry leasure moment should be improved in storeing the mind with some sciensce or learning some good principle and acknowledged the teachings we had recieved to be of the Lord
~ Orson Pratt
W. Woodruff arose & said he had some things in his heart he wished to say, that a burned child dreaded the fire. He had not forgotton his journey in the Camp of 1834 and should he live to the age of Matheusala he should not forget the hour when the Prophet & Seer Joseph Smith stood upon the waggon wheel & addressed that Camp & said that because they had not harkened to his Councel but disobeyed, & transgressed from time to time, that the die was cast & Judgment must come that we should be visited by the destroying Angels And so we were & more than twenty of our numbers fell by the stroke & we all suffered much in our feelings And I pray the Lord I may not see another such a time And I would now advise my brethren to be careful in keeping the Coven[an]t ywe have made lest by & by the word of the Lord come unto us as in the days of Joseph & we cannot escape his judgment. I would advise all the Brethren who have got cards to burn them up for also checkers & dominoes, for if you keep your covenants you have made you will have no time to use them & they will be useless lomber on your hands. if you keep them for your children they will ownly prove, a curse to them. And my prayer to God is thayt we all may be enabled to keep all our covenants with the Lord & each other I rejoice that the watchman upon the walls or in our mids are quick to comprehend & warn us of evil & reprove us when wrong that we may de saved & do the will of God
~ Wilford Woodruff
May 30, 1847 ~ Sunday 30th Sunday we set this day apart for Prayer & fasting, in the morning I shaved & washed all over & anointed my head & put on clean clothing, read a chapter in the Book of Mormon & humbled myself before the Lord & poured out my soul in prayer before the Lord & his spirit desended upon me & I was blessed.
~ Wilford Woodruff

Related Documents

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Discourse 1847-05-29
W. Woodruff I shall not forget the time that bro. J. Smith stood upon a Wagn Wheel, told the camp that the die was cast, the dove must come. there r persons here who were there when the destroyg angel visited us. we av made a covt, God, angels av witd it. I dont want to see such a scene agn. I want u to burn every deck of cards, Chequer board &c. we av got to lay them aside. it dont bec us as apostles & Hi Priests, ma God bless us &c I am thankful that we av Watchmen on the Walls to discern things &c.

Events

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May 29, 1847