Jonathan Stapley - The Power of Godliness: Mormon Liturgy and Cosmology

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To Kathryn, with whom the cosmos is as enjoyable as it is interesting.

BOTH THIS WORK and I have been enriched by generous associations with scholars focused on Mormons and Mormonism. It is a field rich in documentary resources and passionate practitioners. My fellow contributors to the By Common Consent and Juvenile Instructor websites have been particularly encouraging. Colleagues have often shared references that have expanded my views and understanding. Ardis Parshall was particularly helpful in sharing material and friendship. Gary Bergera and Brett Dowdle pointed me to several important items key to the chapter on baby blessings. The staff of the Church History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were incredibly helpful in making available materials germane to this project. Their work to preserve and make materials of historical interest available is simply extraordinary.

Mark Ashurst-McGee, Samuel Brown, Kathleen Flake, Lisa Olsen Tait, Ryan Tobler, and John Turner reviewed sections of this book. Matthew Bowman, Terryl Givens, Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, Ellen Henneman, Michael MacKay, Quincy D. Newell, Joseph Stuart, William V. Smith, and Stephen Taysom reviewed chapters (sometimes multiple). All offered helpful questions, comments, and criticisms, for which I am grateful. Kristine Wright is a longtime friend and collaborator without whom I would not have been in a position to write this book. She also read and responded to several chapters. I must thank and credit Jill Mulvay Derr for inspiring me generally and to start this project particularly; her regular encouragement and critique were essential. Of course, misinterpretations and errors are solely mine. Jana Riess was a skillful and efficient editor who helped me clarify my natively turbid and obscure prose.

My family has been a constant support as I research and write. My parents, Ron and Julie, are generous with their interest and encouragement. Kathryn, my wife, is patient and gracious. She is the person to whom I owe the greatest debt for my time on this project and on religious history more broadly. Thank you.

We have the ancient order

To us by prophets given,

And here we have the pattern

As things exist in heavn.

ELIZA R. SNOW, 1857

ON FEBRUARY 17, 1847, Brigham Young lay sick in his bed, tottering in and out of consciousness. Outside, his people swarmed throughout the refugee camp in the Omaha Nation Territory. The bulk of the Latter-day Saints had followed Young and the other twelve apostles after Joseph Smith was killed almost three years earlier. They only had enough time to finish their temple on the Mississippi River before fleeing west. Everything they had worked so hard to build slipped from them, and they needed a new home. While other church leaders addressed a meeting of Youngs expanding kin, Young had a dream in which Joseph Smith appeared to him. This vision was so important to him that as soon as he was able, he wrote down a description of it in his own hand.