Friday, April 4, 2025

Apostolic Comment on the 1911 BYU Modernism-Evolution Concern, and Three Associated Dream-Visions

 

by Dennis B. Horne

1911 saw the culmination of a grave problem at Brigham Young University between a few highly educated faculty pushing scientific and theological theories, and Church leaders and school administrators seeking stable gospel orthodoxy for students. A well-written overview of this episode, which really stretched from 1909 to early 1911, is found in Ernest L. Wilkinson, ed., Brigham Young University: The First One Hundred Years (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1975), 4 vols, 1:412-435. The episode is not found in Saints, vol. 3, though mention of the Scopes Monkey trial is.

What is shared below are comments from Apostles who dealt with the BYU circumstances by formal committee assignment or later referred to it (plus a few dream-vision accounts of related interest).

These diary entries and teachings/counsel (click links for originals; no links for Penrose’s) tell the story in largely chronological order from an Apostolic perspective. They convey Apostolic views, feelings, and positions on the subject—some informally but others official for that time. All of them were against higher criticism being taught and evolution accounting for the creation and origin of man; all were also strongly against these being taught at BYU—enough to rid the school of three professors who insisted on teaching them despite serious professional consequences. The Apostolic diary entries speak for themselves.

 

Apostolic Comment that Tells a Cautionary Tale

 

Charles W. Penrose, diary

February 3, 1911;

Met with Board of Education at Presidents office. Appointed on Committee to investigate false doctrines taught by Professors Peterson and Chamberlin on BYC [BYU] at Provo.

 

Anthon H. Lund, diary

February 3, 1911:

Friday. The General Board of Education met and the main subject of discussion was the report of the Superintendent of the new doctrine of Bible interpretation, higher criticism of the Bible, and a committee was appointed to meet some of the pronounced teachers on this question and if they would not change, then to stop their teaching. We feel this a crisis. The pupils think they are getting new light. Henry Peterson, Joseph Peterson and W. H. Chamberlain are the men who have adopted the new criticism.

 

[Church Board of Education]

February 3, 1911

President Francis M. Lyman, Chairman, . . .

Dear Brother:

It having been represented to the General Church Board of Education that Professors Henry Peterson, Joseph Peterson and Ralph V. Chamberlin, of the Brigham Young University, have been and are teaching in the school theological ideas and theories which seriously tend to weaken the faith of the students in the Scriptures and are not in harmony with the truth as revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith, a committee was appointed, consisting of yourself, as chairman, and Elders Heber J. Grant, Hyrum M. Smith, Charles W. Penrose, George F. Richards, George H. Brimhall and Horace H. Cummings, to make a thorough investigation of this matter, with the request that you will report the result of the investigation, with your recommendations, to the Board of Trustees of the Brigham Young University at as early a date as possible.

Yours truly,

Arthur Winter

Secretary [to Church Board of Education and the First Presidency]

 

Heber J. Grant, diary

February 5, 1911:

At ten attended the Temple Fast meeting. We had a glorious meeting. I think it was one of the best I have ever attended of those very splendid meetings, than which I know of none which I am permitted to attend that are more interesting and inspiring to me. Pres. Smith gave the keynote in his opening remarks. He advised that we study the word of God and do not try to hunt for some wonderful [new] things in it, but to realize that the Gospel is simple and always will be. Referred to the many theories regarding the Gospel now being indulged in and warned the students against getting off onto wrong lines. Live the truth and be humble and never forget that it is simple. . . .

            The main thing that Pres. Smith spoke against this a.m. was the tendency of some of the young students to feel that they had outgrown the Church and the Gospel as taught by their fathers.

 

Joseph F. Smith (Church President)

[February 1911 issue of the Juvenile Instructor]:

Some questions have arisen about the attitude of the Church on certain discussions of philosophy in the Church schools. Philosophical discussions, as we understand them, are open questions about which men of science are very greatly at variance. . . . Students are very apt to draw the conclusion that whichever side of a controversial question they adopt is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and it is very doubtful, therefore, whether the great mass of our students have sufficient discriminating judgment to understand very much some of the advanced theories of philosophy or science. . . .

Some of our teachers are anxious to explain how much of the theory of evolution, in their judgment, is true, and what is false, but that only leaves their students in an unsettled frame of mind. They are not old enough and learned enough to discriminate, or put proper limitations upon a theory which we believe is more or less a fallacy. In reaching the conclusion that evolution would be best left out of discussion in our Church schools we are deciding a question of propriety and are not undertaking to say how much of evolution is true, or how much is false. . . .

The Church itself has no philosophy about the modus operandi employed by the Lord in His creation of the world, and much of the talk therefore about the philosophy of Mormonism is altogether misleading. God has revealed to us a simple and effectual way of serving Him, and we should regret very much to see the simplicity of those revelations involved in all sorts of philosophical speculations. If we encouraged them it would not be long before we should have a theological scholastic aristocracy in the Church, and we should therefore not enjoy the brotherhood that now is, or should be common to rich and poor, learned and unlearned among the Saints.

 

George F. Richards, journal

February 9, 1911: . . .

I attended regular council meeting of the First Presidency and Twelve in temple from 10 A.M. to 2 P.M. Received appointment with Joseph. W. McMurrin to Teton [stake] and later the appointment was cancelled that I might be in attendance at a meeting of a committee appointed to meet three of the BYU professors who are charged with having systematically taught in the BYU doctrines in conflict with the doctrines of the gospel &c.

 

George F. Richards, journal

February 10, 1911: . . .

From 10 A.M. to 7 P.M. with exception of 40 minutes recess I was with members of my council as a committee at Pres. Lyman’s office investigating the faith and doctrines taught in the BYU by certain college professors. The personnel of the committee was Pres. Lyman, Elders Grant, Penrose, H. M. Smith, A. W. Ivins & myself and Pres. Cummings, Supt.. of Church Schools. Prests Geo. Brimhall and Keeler of BYU were in attendance. Henry & Joseph Peterson and Prof. Chamberlain were examined. These believe in and teach Higher Criticism and Evolution in the BYU.

 

Charles W. Penrose, diary

February 10, 1911:

Met with committee and BYU Principal and Professors on heretical teachings. . . . Met again at 2 p.m. Professors Petersen (2) and Chamberlain (1) frankly acknowledged belief in the “higher criticism” and absolute certainty as to truth of Evolution and disbelief in many Biblical statements while they recognized its general inspiration, literary excellence and spiritual influence. They set themselves up as independent of Church Supt and Prest of University in mode and tenor of teaching in their particular callings. Believed in God, in miracles, the Atonement, ordinances, resurrection &c, but claimed the common origin of all material forms of life including man from the same protoplasm. Therefore there was no special creation of man. Kept in session until 7 p.m. Many questions asked and replied to, some directly others evasively. Closed with prayer. . . .

 

Heber J. Grant, diary

February 10, 1911:

This afternoon met with President Lyman, Bros Hyrum M. Smith, Charles W. Penrose, Anthony W. Ivins, George H. Brimhall, Joseph B. Keeler, Henry and Joseph Peterson, Ralph Chamberlin and Horace H. Cummings, and we were together until nearly 7 p.m. listening to explanations regarding the teachings of the Bros. Peterson and Chamberlin at the B.Y.U. at Provo. They were very frank in their explanations of their beliefs on Evolution, and as to certain parts of the Bible which they did not believe. They manifested a very good spirit.

 

George F. Richards, journal

February 11, 1911:. . . .

I met with same committee as that I was with yesterday, from 10 A.M. to 3 P.M. or there abouts. We completed our labors and formulated a report to be made to President Smith and the General Board of Education.

 

Heber J. Grant, diary

February 11, 1911:

            At ten attended the meeting of the Apostles who were together last evening and after discussing the status of Bros Peterson and Bro Chamberlin; we were unanimous of the opinion that it was unsafe for them to continue teaching at the Brigham Young University. We were together until a little after 2 p.m.

 

Charles W. Penrose, diary

February 11, 1911:

Meeting with committee in Pres. Lyman’s office 10:10 a.m. All talked several at great length. All agreed that the ideas and belief expressed by the Professors under fire ought not to be taught in Church schools but that the men were sincere and good. The committee agreed to report accordingly and to recommend that their services be dispensed with unless they conform to the decisions & instructions of the Board of Education. Adjourned at 2:10 p.m.

 

[Church Board of Education]

Salt Lake City, Utah

February 11, 1911

President Joseph F. Smith and

Members of the Board of Trustees of the

Brigham Young University,

Provo City, Utah.

Dear Brethren:

We, a committee appointed by the General Church Board of Education to investigate complaints made in a report by the General Superintendent, H. H. Cummings, concerning certain Theological teachings of some of the professors in the BY University and their effects upon the students there, in accordance with instructions from the said board submit to you our findings as follows:

We have met Professors Henry Peterson, Joseph Peterson and Ralph Chamberlin and listened to their statements concerning each item in the superintendent’s report and we find that the complaints in said report are substantially correct.

We send with this a copy of that report and recommend that in view of the investigation which has been held that the services of those three teachers in the BY University be dispensed with unless they change their teachings to conform to the decisions and instructions of the Board of Trustees of the Brigham Young University and the General Church Board of Education.

Respectfully,

Your Brethren

(signed) Francis M. Lyman,

Heber J. Grant,

Hyrum M. Smith,

Charles W. Penrose,

George F. Richards,

Anthony W. Ivins,

George H. Brimhall,

Horace H. Cummings

 

Charles W. Penrose, diary

February 14, 1911:

Had talk with Edward H. Anderson on prevalent heresies of evolution.

 

Anthon H. Lund, diary

February 20, 1911:

Monday. 1 attended a meeting of the Provo B.Y.U. Board in which the attitude of Bros. W. H. Chamberlain, Henry Peterson and Jos. Peterson on the higher Criticism was discussed and a resolution taken that teachers in the Church schools must teach their classes the Gospel as taught by the First Presidency and the Apostles.

 

Anthon H. Lund, diary

February 21, 1911: . . .

At the Sunday School board meeting I met Henry Peterson. He wanted to resign from the Religion Class board, saying “As I am not worthy to teach in the Church Schools I am not worthy to teach Religion Classes.” I said: “Bro. Henry it is not worthiness that is lacking it is this, that you should teach the word of God without private interpretation, and not take the bridle bit in your own mouth!”

 

George F. Richards, journal

February 21, 1911: . . .

The extent to which evolution and higher criticism is gaining ground among our school teachers is something alarming. The effects of such teachings in the B.Y.U. of Provo are indeed alarming. These style them selves the progressive element. There are those making up the conservative element and then the orthodox Mormons.

 

President Joseph F. Smith wrote his son (Feb. 25, 1911) and said: “For my sake, my son, as well as your own, eschew the [BYU professors’] evolution and all such things.”

 

Charles W. Penrose, diary

March 7, 1911:

Talked with Edward H. Anderson on eternity of reproduction instead of evolution from one cell.

 

Charles W. Penrose, diary

March 15, 1911:

At Presidents Office. Met Brimhall and Keeler, had confab on Evolution Professors, decided that they either conform to rules & Brigham Young University and Church or be released.

 

April 10, 1911

President H. S. Allen,

Raymond.

Dear Brother:-

At a meeting of the General Church Board of Education, held March 29, the following resolution was unanimously passed, and a copy of same is forwarded to you with the request that you will be governed thereby in the engagement of teachers for your school:

“That it is the sense of the Board that any Church school teacher who persists in the teaching of ideas contrary to the teachings of the Presidency and Apostles of the Church, be not re-engaged to teach in the Church schools, and that at the time of the engagement of teachers for Church school service, it is definitely understood that the teaching of doctrine opposed to the preaching of the Presidency and Apostles shall be considered sufficient cause for dismissal without recourse.”

Yours truly,

Arthur Winter

Secretary [to Church Board of Education and the First Presidency]

[Handwritten note at bottom:] “Similar letter sent to every Principal of the Church Schools.”

 

Dream-Visions

 

Boyd K. Packer (BYU Devotional, August 29, 1995):

To understand why that is memorable to me, we must go back to 1910. George H. Brimhall, having already served nineteen years as president of BYU, determined to establish a recognized teachers college. He had hired three professors: one with a master’s degree from Harvard, one with a doctorate from Cornell, and the other with a doctorate from Chicago. They hoped to transform the college into a full-fledged university. They determined that practicality and religion, which had characterized the school, must now give way to more intellectual and scientific philosophies.

The professors held that “the fundamentals of religion could and must be investigated by extending the [empirical] method into the spiritual realm,” and they “considered evolution to be a basic, spiritual principle through which the divinity in nature expressed itself.” The faculty sided with the new professors and the students rallied to them.

Horace H. Cummings, superintendent of Church schools, became concerned because they were “applying the evolutionary theory and other philosophical hypotheses to principles of the gospel and to the teachings of the Church in such a way as to disturb, if not destroy the faith of the pupils,” and he wrote, “Many stake presidents, some of our leading principals and teachers, and leading men who are friends of our schools have expressed deep anxiety to me about this matter.”

Superintendent Cummings reported to the board that

1. The teachers were following the “higher criticism” . . . , treating the Bible as “a collection of myths, folk-lore, dramas, literary productions, ­history and some inspiration.”

2. They rejected the flood, the confusion of tongues, the miracle of the Red Sea, and the temptation of Christ as real phenomena.

3. They said John the Revelator was not translated but died in the year A.D. 96.

4. “The theory of evolution is treated as a demonstrated law and their applications of it to gospel truths give rise to many curious and conflicting explanations of scripture.”

5. The teachers carried philosophical ideas too far: (1) “They believed sinners should be pitied and enlightened rather than blamed or punished,” (2) and they believed that “we should never agree. God never made two things alike. Only by taking different views of a thing can its real truth be seen.”

6. . . .

7. The professors taught that “all truths change as we change. Nothing is fixed or reliable.”

8. They also taught that “visions and revelations are mental suggestions. The objective reality of the presence of the Father and the Son, in Joseph Smith’s first vision, is questioned.”

Superintendent Cummings concluded his report by saying that the professors “seem to feel that they have a mission to protect the young from the errors of their parents.”

President Brimhall himself defended the ­professors—that is, until some students “frankly told him they had quit praying because they learned in school there was no real God to hear them.”

Shortly thereafter President Brimhall had a dream.

He saw several of the BYU professors standing around a peculiar machine on the campus. When one of them touched a spring a baited fish hook attached to a long thin wire rose rapidly into the air. . . .

Casting his eyes around the sky he [President Brimhall] discovered a flock of snow-white birds circling among the clouds and disporting themselves in the sky, seemingly very happy. Presently one of them, seeing the bait on the hook, darted toward it and grabbed it. Instantly one of the professors on the ground touched a spring in the machine, and the bird was rapidly hauled down to the earth.

On reaching the ground the bird proved to be a BYU student, clad in an ancient Greek costume, and was directed to join a group of other students who had been brought down in a similar manner. Brother Brimhall walked over to them, and noticing that all of them looked very sad, discouraged and downcast, he asked them:

“Why, students, what on earth makes you so sad and downhearted?”

“Alas, we can never fly again!” they replied with a sigh and a sad shake of the head.

Their Greek philosophy had tied them to the earth. They could believe only what they could demonstrate in the laboratory. Their prayers could go no higher than the ceiling. They could see no heaven—no hereafter. [Emphasis in Packer’s quotation]

Now deeply embarrassed by the controversy and caught between opposing factions, President Brimhall at first attempted to be conciliatory. He said, “I have been hoping for a year or two past that harmony could be secured by waiting, but the delays have been fraught with increased danger.”When an exercise in administrative diplomacy suddenly became an issue of faith, President Brimhall acted. [The offending unbending professors were dismissed; see page 428, note 63, Wilkinson piece.]

 

Orson F. Whitney:

In 1910, Elder Orson F. Whitney of the Quorum of the Twelve met Mary Laura Hickman, sister of Josiah E. Hickman, who lived in Benjamin (Utah County), Utah. This was a fateful meeting that grew into a non-physical, platonic friendship for a decade. Orson and Laura spent many hours together reading poetry. He fell in love with her but she rebuffed his hopes. As her brother Josiah E. Hickman put it in his diary, “He thinks the world of Laura”—which was an expression that in that day usually meant being in love. But Laura had no interest in marriage (she never did marry anyone). If Elder Whitney had married her (ostensibly as a plural wife), he would have been excommunicated, so it is advantageous that she wasn’t interested.

            Laura was a member of a prominent latter-day saint family that was well-educated for that generation. And this is the plot and the rub: She herself had gone East to obtain more education than was available to her in Utah and had returned deeply disturbed in her mind about science and religion. Atheism, skepticism, and doubt had conquered her for a time, but she had survived and returned to the faith of her family and fathers; the Restored Church of Jesus Christ.

            Elder Whitney wrote a book-length poem-romance novel about her experiences and his helping her regain her testimony and faith—but without mentioning her by name. Titled, Love and the Light: An Idyl of the Westland, we only know Laura to be the “heroine” in the book, because her brother Josiah mentioned it. In his diary he wrote, “He [Elder Whitney] is . . . starting a novel based up[on] his experience here . . . Outside of his Elias it is the best and lengthiest poem he has written. . . . The poem is based upon Laura’s life, etc.”

            The poem’s Preface states: “The heroine [Laura] is a Western girl, born and reared in the region of the Rocky Mountains, beautiful and accomplished, but tinged with atheism, imbibed at the college where she completed her education. The hero is a New Englander, a Harvard graduate, who, from an independent attitude toward creeds and churches, is won to the religion of Jesus Christ, and endeavors to convert the lady of his love. His vocation, like hers, is that of teacher. The New England youth and the fictitious narrator of the story were college chums, and it is through the latter that the former, while on a visit to the West, becomes acquainted with the young woman whom he recognizes as his fate. The mutual relations of the pair, with the pros and cons of the great problem dividing them—the problem of atheism versus religion—form the backbone of the narrative.”

            In the book, or novel, in poetic form and verse, Elder Whitney refutes the false vagaries and theories of some science, such as higher criticism, evolution, and how these can cause doubt or worse in unsuspecting students.

            A short sample from the book follows:

 

Her allegiance was to Science.

So she deemed; but doubt misled her—

Doubt, whose other name is darkness.

Shallow-dredging criticism,

Learning's false impersonator;

Intellectual nihilism.

Faith-uprooting, hope-destroying,

Theory for fact enthroning.

Miracle as myth rejecting,

Christ, as God, repudiating.

And its own existence doubting;

Unknown god of pseudo-science,

As the true God masquerading.

This she bowed to, this she worshipt,

Deifying human wisdom

At the shrine of demonstration. . . .

"What of Darwin and the dreamers

Whom you reverence profoundly

For their whole and half revealings

In the mystic realms of research?

Accoucheurs of infant knowledge,

Embryotic truths and errors,

Hooks whereon their rash disciples,

Eager to o'erleap conclusion

And surpass bewildered sages.

Hang conjecture and surmising—

Semi-facts—and name them “science”.

Shorter, shallower minds misleading.

“What of Evolution's findings?

Had it ne'er a fancy cherished.

It had ne'er a fact uncovered.

“Every art and every science,

Was it not some dreamer's 'notion

Ere some later dreamer's magic

Woke it into life and action.

Fancy into fact transmuting

 

            In 1918, when Elder Whitney’s book was published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with President Joseph F. Smith as copyright holder, the hope and purpose of the volume was to strengthen the youth of the Church; to keep them from falling victim to certain common theoretical scientific postulates.

            Elder Whitney experienced a dream or vision relating to his book and its influence for good:

 

            Last night (July 1 or early this morning July 2) I had a rather remarkable dream. I thought I was climbing a hill or mountain slope, and ahead of me was some superior Being acting as my guide and encouraging my ascent. Over my right shoulder and extending back was a strong cable, which I grasped with both hands. Behind me the cable—which was not of rope or anything rough, but rather of silk or flax, soft to the touch—parted into innumerable ribbons, each one attached to an individual, and by this means I was drawing a great multitude up the mountain. I was quite happy in my task, and seemed to have a giant’s strength; I pulled with ease, and at times ran rejoicing, in my strength. Presently I looked back to see who the people were that I was helping on and up, and all at once it flashed across my mind that they were the Mutual Improvement workers or young men and young women of the Church. I awoke feeling happy that I was helpful, or had been, or would be, in so good a cause. The interpretation suggested to my mind was that the cable symbolized my lately published poem, Love and the Light: An Idyl of the Westland, written purposely to strengthen the faith of the young people and draw them nearer to the truth.

 

            In his diary he wrote: “Today, at the quarterly meetings of the Twelve, while addressing the Brethren, I related the dream, but not the interpretation, when President Heber J. Grant said, ‘It means your book.’ Thus confirming my own thought in relation to it.” (See Dennis B. Horne, The Life of Orson F. Whitney: Historian, Poet, Apostle; As Recorded in His Daily Journals [Springville, UT.; Cedar Fort Inc., 2014], chapter 17,)

 

Josiah E. Hickman:

In the aforementioned Wilkinson history of BYU that reviews the modernism-evolution controversy, note 22, page 413, are these two sentences: “J. E. Hickman gave a talk at Brigham City on reconciling the six days of creation with science. His views are nowhere clearly explicated.” That may have been true when that history was being researched and written, but is not now.

Josiah E. Hickman’s extensive diary has been posted online and contains material describing his deep concerns about evolution and a dream-vision an angel showed him about it in 1894. (Hickman was not an apostle but was Elder Whitney’s best friend.) The pertinent Hickman diary entries follow; they cover some of the BYU evolution episode and also his lengthy vision:

 

July 3, 1910, Beaver. . . .

Since last writing I have been to Salt Lake again. All the Principals and Presidents were called to Salt Lake to talk over matters concerning the policy and workings of our schools. . . . We also discussed the danger in our schools of teaching Evolution in Theology.

 

Feb 22, 1911:

Trouble is now on thru the Petersons and Chamberlain teaching evolution and doubting the scriptures. It will cost them their standing it seems. Never since the days of the apostasy in Nauvoo has there been such a commotion and strife.

 

Feb 26, 1911,

Beaver: I referred to the attitude taken by some of our L.D.S. Educators (Drs. Joseph and Henry Peterson, and Chamberlain) on the evolutionary thought. They feel that the Bible is unreliable in its miracles and visions, etc. They have tinctured a great many students. Their cases have been investigated by the apostles and these teachers will probably be removed from their places. I referred to the dream or vision God gave me while I was a student in Ann Arbor concerning the relation of Evolution to our gospel. To me that was one of the greatest visions or dreams of my life.

 

December 7, 1914, Logan, Ut:

I have decided to teach no more. I am not pleased with the situation in our College. The President (Dr. C. N. Jensen) is deceitful, dishonest, and has about him some teachers who are skeptical as to our doctrine and our present leaders. They accept the evolutionary ideas in preference to God's revealed word. He himself believes our church doctrines not wholly true. He tells me on the "q.t." that man sprang from the monkey and that our church has got to accept it within 12 or 15 yrs. He is jealous of those who are as learned as himself. He has a skin as thin as an oyster's, and he is as venomous as a hornet, while he treats everyone else as though their skin was as thick as an elephant’s. Most of the teachers feel towards him as I do, and I learn from leading students that he is hated by nearly every student in the school. I have known this for 2 and 3 years but have tried to hold him up to them. He has knifed nearly all the leaders of the church as well as a number of our most prominent educators to me time and again. He plays the part of a demagogue and I do not care to have my feelings harassed by being around him, so I will leave at the end of this school year. I may be making a mistake to leave the profession, but time will tell. Until recently I could not make up my mind to leave the teaching profession. Pres. Jensen will not keep big men around him and every year the faculty is losing one or more of their best teachers. [Hickman evidently changed his mind about teaching.]

 

October 14, 1917, Logan, Ut:

Since last writing school has begun. I am busy with my classes in the B.Y.C. . . .

I went to the Semi-Annual conference at Salt Lake. I do not know whenever I enjoyed a conference more. The spirit of God rested upon both speaker and audience. I never attended a conference before where the speakers quoted and read so much scripture. We are realizing that God has spoken and he is fulfilling his promises.

But I am troubled over the faith of some of our teachers in the B.Y.C. They are holding more to the voice of science than to God's revelation concerning the origin of man. Even Pres. Jensen thinks the church will have to accept Evolution and reject the old scripture of God's forming Adam, etc. Even a number of our teachers are denying the account of the sea dividing and children of Israel passing thru and Egyptians being drowned. They deny the life of Job; the flood as general [world-wide], account of Jonah, yet Christ gives it a stamp of authenticity by saying as Jonah was in the whale's belly 3 days and 3 nights, so should the son of man be in the heart of the earth 3 days and 3 nights or words to that effect (Matt.12:39). Some do not believe the lost tribes will come out of the north countries as is told in the D&C 133. . . . Some believe our leaders are grafters and looking after self than following God's commandments. These and other things they disbelieve and criticize. These things grieve me because I know they are wrong. I feel we are losing out spiritually and our students in many instances are losing faith while in our college. Our college is not filling its destiny in this regard. I sometimes almost feel I stand alone in this effort to lift up our students into a higher spiritual life.

 

August 31, 1925, Logan:

I spoke Sunday night in 1st ward on the stir in the nation over the teaching of evolution in the schools—the trial of Prof. Scopes of Tennessee. I said it was a protest of millions of Americans over the fact that every theory or science, philosophy, etc. has full swing and freedom to be taught in our schools which in the main throws doubt on God and his revelations, but God and the Bible are rigidly excluded from our schools. I claimed that to exclude God, the author of the universe, from the youth of the nation is a travesty unparalleled. A nation that tried for 100 years to get God and the Bible in their constitution, then exclude them from the education of the youth of the nation was a crime. Then I reviewed in brief the harmony of Science and religion and wherein they varied. My brief address has produced much comment and praise from those who were there.

 

October 7, 1925:

I went to Salt Lake and attended the semiannual Conference Monday and Tuesday. Martha went 2 or 3 days before to attend other conventions. The main themes were the belief and keeping of God's commandments; the error of evolution in thinking man came from some lower animal.

 

February 16, 1926 [journal date of 1925 is typo], Logan [paragraphing added]:

Last Sunday I went to Preston by appointment to speak in the 4th ward. When I got there I found that it was quarterly conference in the Oneida stake. I got there at 2 p.m. and the conference started at 1 p.m. so Apostle Whitney could leave on the 3:15 train. I was asked to take a seat on the stand though I was an hour late. After Apostle Whitney was through speaking he asked that I be given the rest of the time—35 minutes. I hitched on the theme he had spoken on—God's revelation and science. . . .

I reviewed my experience while a student in University of Michigan and God's answer finally given me thru continued prayer. During most of a night I was in a vision back to my father's home. It was given me in somewhat of a figurative way. Then when I awoke and was told that there was my answer to my request, I could not interpret it and asked for the meaning. I had no sooner asked for the meaning than I was immediately back (in vision) to my father's home and a heavenly visitor stood by my side and explained the science to me as it again was repeated. I suppose I should take the time to write out this favored vision for it was a mighty revelation to me.

In brief it was this: At the time I was in and under constant fire over evolution. At that time the evolutionists were quite of the opinion that God was not needed in the scheme of creation for natures laws could do it all. That life was spontaneous, etc. At that time I was studying Geology, Paleontology, Biology, Zoology, Botany, psychology, etc. and everything was interpreted from the standpoint of blind evolution. I felt I knew our gospel was true and had read our standard works, our history, etc., but being bombarded from every side by superior minds with what appeared to be facts and truths strongly fortified by rib-bound theories. I was a little like Lehi, I found myself hanging to a rod of iron passing through a valley of darkness. I often asked God to explain to me the relation between my religion and the theories of men.

On that special occasion I had been reading all day on the history of education. It was then late on a September afternoon. For a rest I got up and walked the floor for I was alone then as my family were not with me. I was reliving in my mind my religion and the conflict with the philosophies of men. While so meditating I was impressed to pray over the matter for light. I then knelt by my bed and prayed earnestly for God to show me the truth of things so I should not be led estray. . . .

I asked Him if anything He had revealed would ever be modified so that they (science and religion) would be harmonized. When through my prayer I arose and walked my room again in calm meditation pondering these things over again. I was again impressed to pray which I did and I noticed my phraseology was being framed much as my first prayer. It almost seemed as the same force was guiding me what to ask for.

When through my second prayer I arose and walked my room again in quiet meditation. After some 15 or 20 minutes of thought I was impressed to pray for the third time. On doing so I was conscious of my thoughts and words again being guided as before. I then seemed quite satisfied in my mind. That night I went to bed about my usual time some time near 11 p.m. I awoke next morning just at daylight. No sooner had I opened my eyes when a voice said to me “there is your answer.” I thought “What answer. I have asked no question.” Then I immediately remembered I had been praying the afternoon before, asking for God to reveal the truth of things and explain the relations of science and religion. Then I said to myself, where is the answer? Then there burst upon my mind that I had been in a dream or vision all night.

I had been to my parents' home in Benjamin, Utah. I had stood across the street—east, looking at our home. I could see the end of the home rather than the side. While looking at it, a few well-dressed gentlemen, calm in speech and manner, approached me. They were highly educated. One of them seemed to do the talking. He pointed to my parents' home and said: “Your parents take in roomers and boarders as an accommodation” (which they did for no one else in the village did so). “Why don't you enlarge your home so you or they can take in all travelers for they will come here from all over the earth. You can't accommodate but a small amount who will come here. The people from all over the earth will come and desire to stay in your father's home, but they can't be accommodated. It is too small.” I replied that I could not think of seeing my father's home entirely changed to accommodate travelers. I said it would not be home any more to me. It would destroy the very spirit and soul of the home.

“Well,” said he, “if you are so particular about keeping the home as a home so that the spirit of the home would remain, take down the walls and leave the foundation untouched (you would still have the home or the foundation); then you can build up the walls flaring thus, then every story you build on above the other there would be more rooms than on the story below and so on until when several stories had been builded you would have any amount of rooms and so on as you needed until all the world could be accommodated.” I immediately replied that that could not be done for the walls would fall and destroy the building.

He, the spokesman, said in a most pleasant and assuring tone of voice that the walls would not fall for said he: “Science has proved that the walls can be so built that they will never fall”; but I could not believe it. Without my consent I saw the walls of my father's home taken down and only the foundation remained. Then workmen in a most rapid manner began to rebuild the flaring walls as the scientist had declared they could be with perfect safety. All the while the learned men—quiet, serene, deeply sincere—and I stood across the street and watched the building go up with almost incredible swiftness.

To my surprise the walls endured on and on up to several stories and I was full of wonderment and had said to myself “Is it possible I am deceived after all?,” but while looking on in half perplexity, the walls of a sudden fell with a crash to the ground. A great dust arose as one would expect. When the cloud of dust cleared away I saw that every brick had fallen from the foundation of my father's home, but that the foundation was not injured at all. I then turned to these scientists and said, “It is just as I told you. Now, what of your demonstrated science?”

 Those men were so confused and perplexed to find all their life's theories and demonstrated facts were false after all and proved to work havoc, they were almost speechless. They could make no answer to my question but departed one by one in confusion without reply. They seemed to just melt away or disappear. Then, standing there alone, I saw my father's home rebuilt as it was at first. It looked good to me. I then saw other fine buildings built on either side of our home just a rod or so way. They were of white brick while my father's home was of red brick (for that is their real color). No matter how high those buildings were reared my father's home was still higher and larger. I said to myself, “I never knew my father's home was so tall and magnificent before.” Then I tried to see just how tall my father's home was. I raised my eyes to the height I had looked before but the home was still higher. Then I raised my eyes still higher and lo, my father's home extended to the clouds and still I could not see the top. I thought how strange, I helped to build that home and had never known such height.

This was the vision of the night and when the memory of all this vision was on me again I could see no relation to what I had asked the afternoon before. “Father,” I said, “if this is my answer will you explain it to me as I do not understand the figurative meaning?” I no sooner had asked this than I was back in the vision of the night. I stood in the same place on the east side of the street from my father's home.

An angel or a messenger stood by my side. (May I digress a moment to say I had seen him before in a vision and once since in a glorious vision of the future). He explained all I had seen and every step I beheld again. He said: “Your father's home is the Gospel of Jesus Christ—the faith of your fathers. The red brick symbolizes that it is ancient. The learned men who talked with you represented the great scholars of the earth—scientists and philosophers. They wanted to have your father's faith so changed that it would accept all conclusions of science and theories of men. You rightly objected because that would destroy the perfectness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “You beheld that the change of your father's home brought destruction; all except the foundation which was not changed. That had not been changed. It symbolized the gospel which is perfect and if it is changed it will destroy the truth as God has revealed to the earth again.” “The new white brick buildings built on either side of your father's home were the truths and theories of men as by homes in which the learned might lodge. Being builded on their own foundations, if they fall, they fall from their own foundations and do not affect the gospel or your father's home. What is true will stand. It can and will stand on its own foundation. Truth can stand alone. It needs no prop. As the new buildings extended story after story you beheld that your father's home was taller than them all. As you looked you saw no limit to its height. So with the gospel of Jesus Christ: you can't behold its height for it extends into heaven. It is limitless.”

This rehearsal of my night's vision was but for a few minutes for soon I was out of it back in my bed and the day seemed about as early as when I first awoke. The vision was not a sleep; it was an awakening but a change. It seemed that the consciousness of the vision was as perfect an awakened state as my present consciousness is as I write this account. I forgot to say that I was informed that the side buildings of [true] science would be as a protection to the gospel when storms of evil beset the gospel of Christ, etc. I made a brief mention of this dream or vision in my journal at the time, but failed to write in full. See Journal B, pp. 87-89. I was also informed by the angel that when God wished to give new revelation it would be added from above and a modification of the structure already builded.

It was this revelation I related in brief to the conference. I assured them God gave that to me for me. It was no one else's guide. It was to protect me from error; to vindicate me in my belief for my faithfulness. I told them that from that hour I have never been disturbed in my feelings. When men come out with new theories or purported facts and they go counter to God's revealed word, I then put a question mark up on their revelation or findings and not upon God's. The mistake of some of our young scholars is when they find science conflicting with what God

has revealed they question God's revelation. “That,” I said, “is fatal to them, in their true progress.” This was the 1st time, I told them, I had ever related this vision in public but had told it a few times to my most intimate friends. 

 

Conclusion

 

Apostolic comment and concern, controversy, snow-white birds/students, formal administrative decisions and action, and inspired dream-visions—what a year at BYU in 1911.

 

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