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.
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.
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]
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.
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.
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. . . .
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.
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.
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.
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!”
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.
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.”8 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,)
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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