Mr. Phippen Sir believing you to be familliar with the word of God & considering you willing to instruct your inferiors uppon spiritual subjects, & after forming such conections of your character I take this method to ask ^you^ several questions for information & instruction as I have no other motive in view, & should you not consider it beneath your notice to answer my questions by writing but give me your opinions as you have formed it from the word of God it would be highly intresing to me the 1st is respecting the gifts ...

secondly, with respect to the sabbath we allmost universally Regard the first day of the week as the sabbath, but when God appeared to Moses on the mount he commanded him to keep the seventh day as the sabbath & not to labour on that day, so it appears that if their has not been a change of the sabbath we as a bobdy are not keeping the day that we were commanded to keep, still ist is held up to view at this day that the sabbath has been changed, but is it ...

& if I may be allowed to use the expression it has been a mystery to me how so many great divines that have been so long holding up the light of the gospel & still sometime in so gross an error with respect to babtism, for if I am not greatly mistaken I find no account of John or any of the apostles administering the ordinance of babtism untill they become believers in Christ or at least untill they considered them true believers & that appeared to be all that was required of them in ...

Communication to George Phippin by Willford Woodruff Jan 1831