Someone – not Catherine Hurst, I feel certain – filled odd corners of the Young Woman’s Journal with a sort of Hints-from-Heloise type odds and ends. I like the window it opens into the practical problems of the past, so many of which we no longer have to deal with. So yeah, this is a filler for Keepa on a slow day. Enjoy. I expect to have life safely back on track after this afternoon and will get back to writing.

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Celery and onions are nerve tonics.

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Honey is a good substitute for cod liver oil.
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Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd

By Dorothy Clapp Robinson

Chapter Four

“The only thing we found amiss was Mrs. Richards worrying over Salle,” reported one of the visiting teachers. “She went somewhere with Don Grow about two weeks ago and came home engaged. He gave her a lovely diamond. I don’t know why Mrs. Richards should worry so. He has a good job and his mother certainly has money.”

“How did you find the Peters family?”

“The best. He has fixed up that old place until you wouldn’t know it. He is working at the ward shop – but of course you know that. It is queer that such a family would move into our ward for no reason on earth.”

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Almost a year ago (can it really have been that long?), there was much talk in the Bloggernacle about a rumored addition of “caring for the poor and needy” to the familiar “threefold mission of the Church” – traditionally a mission to “perfect the saints, proclaim the gospel, and redeem the dead.” Keepa’s contributions to the discussion were, first, a history of the threefold mission tracing the statement back much farther than its usually assumed origins with Spencer W. Kimball, and some personal thoughts on welcoming the addition, if indeed it were made. A Church spokesman at the time told us to expect the addition of a low-key specific emphasis on caring for the poor and needy when the newest Church Handbook was published in 2010.

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Lesson 47: “Let Us Rise Up and Build”

This 1957 lesson comes from a book written for the seminaries and institutes of the Church: Heber Cyrus Snell, Ancient Israel: Its Story and Meaning (Salt Lake City: Utah Printing Co., 1957) It covers both Nehemiah and Ezra, as does our current manual, and may provide some useful background (read past the first paragraphs before you give up on it).

Nehemiah and Ezra

We are indebted to the chronicler for preserving some first-rate sources for the important half century in which two of the greatest men in Jewish history, Nehemiah and Ezra, did their work. These sources, edited by the hand of the chronicler or some one else of his school, are contained in our two books of Nehemiah and Ezra, which originally formed a series with Chronicles. As presented by a modern English authority [W.O.E. Oesterley and T.H. Robinson, pp. 111-114], the sources referred to are (1) the Ezra Memoirs, (2) The Rescript of Artaxerxes, (3) the Nehemiah Memoirs, and (4) the Temple Records In addition to these are the “Greek Ezra,” the Elephantine Papyri, and Josephus, Antiq., 11:1 (1-5 (8), each of which is of value in piecing out the Old Testament materials.

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For background, see here
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Rigid

Mrs. Jones: “Look, dear, how picturesque; the Browns are bringing in a Yule log.”

Mr. Jones: “Yule log my eye; that’s Brown.”

Circulation Guaranteed

Stubb: “This government report states that the life of a paper dollar is only seven or eight months.”

Stubblefield: “Well, I have never had one die on my hands.”

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Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd

By Dorothy Clapp Robinson

Chapter Three

The telephone jangled impatiently. With a sigh of dismay I wiped my hands and went to answer it.

“It will be Nedra again – or Mrs. Richards,” I thought. Less than an hour ago both of them had called. Nedra had been emphatic. “Salle Richards and Don Grow have gone away together and they are up to something. When I asked to go along they put me off. Probably they have gone to get married. If you ask me, there is something fishy about that Grow place lately. Salle is the only person they will let in beside your husband. I’d keep my wits about me if I were you.”

“What has all this to do with me?” I had asked her, hoping I sounded impersonal. It did dampen her ardour.

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A man I know only as “W.J.” penned this article for the Juvenile Instructor in 1885. I can see an updated version of this being used in a Family Home Evening Lesson, or Seminary, or even in some Sunday classes, if the patter were very well rehearsed by a class clown and the point didn’t get lost in the laughter. Or, if not, it reminds me of the wanderings of some threads in the Bloggernacle.

–ooOoo–

We do not all possess the ability to speak or write our thoughts clearly – to speak or write just what we mean, neither more nor less, and to do so in such a manner that our words can neither be misunderstood nor misconstrued – neither can we remember and narrate facts and events as well nor as correctly as it is our privilege to do; but it is a very good thing to be able to do all these things clearly, correctly and intelligently.

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From the Children’s Friend,
November 1926

Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd

By Dorothy Clapp Robinson

Previous Chapter

Chapter Two

The ward had all been visited and I felt that a good foundation had been laid for our winter’s work. We had seen every woman in her own home. This had given us a workable grasp of her problems and her needs. We were having an officer’s meeting to see that everything was in readiness for the opening of the season’s work.

Toward the close of the meeting, when I asked if there were any other problems to be brought before the meeting, Mrs. Stimmel, our Literary class leader, rose, and in a “do-or-die” tone said:

“Frankly, I am worried over my lessons. I heard Bessie Dye and a group of her friends talking and they expressed themselves as opposed to the Literary lessons – and the Social Service, too. They doubted if they would attend.”

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From the Children’s Friend, November 1936 –

(See here for background)

From 1961 –

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From the Juvenile Instructor, November 1908 –

Tommy’s Thanksgiving

By Annie Malin

Tommy was the man of the house, for his father after moving on to the small farm the year before, had died, leaving his wife and three children to battle for themselves. Tommy was only fourteen but had worked with his father, and being a bright and active boy, could do many things to help his mother.

Spring had come and Tommy and his mother stood looking out over the land wondering how they were to get it plowed and planted. The old team of horses owned by Mr. Harmon had been sold at the time of his death, and after the funeral expenses were paid very little was left to keep the family through the winter. Mrs. Harmon had done Mrs. Kent’s washing and mending and had thus managed to exist, but now how could they expect to live if they could not plant any crops? this question was one that Mrs. Harmon had asked herself many times, and if it had not been that her faith in the watchful care of a Heavenly father sustained her she would have given up in despair.

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From the Children’s Friend, November 1938 –

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This is an unusual topic for Keepa, but I think not inappropriate. It is as much a part of our past as are many of the other, happier articles I post. In reading it, please know that while I don’t endorse these artifacts of the past, neither do I unduly condemn our grandparents and great-grandparents for participating in normal American popular culture. This post is meant only to inform.

Usually when Mormons talk about the relationship between Mormons and Mormonism and blacks, the conversation centers on priesthood and somewhat related (in past generations, not in the present) issues of intermarriage, access to temples, and fellowship. There are other aspects to the relationship between race and church, though: Until fairly recently, Mormons have also been primarily Americans; we imbibed some of the social attitudes and indulged in the cultural atmosphere of America in ways that had nothing to do with doctrine or theology.

The culture shared by Mormons with the rest of America is blatantly obvious in many of the jokes published in the church magazines. As I gather materials for Keepa’s usual Saturday “Funny Bones” posts, I constantly run into jokes that I simply can’t bring myself to publish alongside the corny or clever bits that I do publish. (Is it a double standard that I print jokes about ultra-thrifty Scots, or other ethnic groups? Probably. But it seems to me that a story based on a supposed national trait that is basically good until carried to extremes – thrift – is vastly different from a story based on the supposed criminal tendencies that are at the base of black ethnic jokes from a hundred years ago.) A sampling of the jokes that do not make the cut for “Funny Bones” posts:

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From the Relief Society Magazine, 1938-39:

Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd

By Dorothy Clapp Robinson

Chapter One

“You might as well save your breath. I’m not going.”

I looked up at the rudely defiant girl and caught my words before they were spoken. What a change had come over her. Head up, eyes flashing, cheeks rouged by the intensity of her feelings, she became, on the instant, strikingly attractive. I could hardly believe that a moment before she had been a rather listless, ordinary looking girl. I had always suspected she was capable of a wealth of emotion but why, oh, why, was she so apologetic among people?

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From the Children’s Friend, November 1937 –

The source of these questions and answers can be found in the first installment of this series. It bears repeating for newcomers that the person(s) answering these questions is/are not identified, and that the answers given here are not necessarily current teaching. The chief value of these columns today is in seeing what issues were on the minds of ordinary Church members 60 years ago, and in noting what has changed since then, or what issues we consider modern concerns were being discussed that long ago.

Q. In III Nephi 11:25 we read, “having authority given me of Jesus Christ,” etc. This expression is given there in connection with the wording of the baptismal ceremony. Why do we use the expression, “having been commissioned of Jesus Christ”? – S.R., Ogden, Utah.

A. Either form is effective. The reason for the general use of the latter expression is that it was given by revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith in Section 20 of the doctrine and Covenants, Verse 73, and reads, “The person who is called of God and has the authority from Jesus Christ to baptize, shall go down into the water with the person who has presented himself or herself for baptism and shall say, calling him or her by name: Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. then shall he immerse him or her in the water and come forth again, out of the water.”

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This post is sparked by a current discussion at By Common Consent about why or whether young people drop away from the church. Although that post provoked this one, and I take my title from one of the comments there, please understand that this is not an attack on, nor even a direct response to, any particular individual; I simply take those words as a launching point for my own thoughts because they state so succinctly an outlook I have read many times in the Bloggernacle.

I have a fairly decent familiarity with Church history. I don’t have an academic degree supporting my familiarity, and I don’t have access to every historical record, and I haven’t yet read every last document or study to which I do have access. But I have a solid awareness of Church history nonetheless. I think I could successfully defend my claim to having at least as great a knowledge, and to have thought as long and as deeply about as many aspects of that history, as anyone who claims to have left the Church because of having learned something about our history.

Yet I remain firmly within the Church, in sincere faith as well as in name.

But I need to back up about 30 years …

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Lesson 42: “I Will Write It in Their Hearts”

Jeremiah 16; 23; 29; 31

Purpose

To encourage class members to participate in God’s great latter-day work and to have his law written in their hearts.

Lesson Development

Attention Activity

A few weeks ago Deseret Book published a new biography of President Monson, To the Rescue. Have any of you have a chance to read that yet? What did you learn about President Monson from reading his biography?

[Encourage a brief discussion; if no one has yet seen this book, ask about biographies of other church leaders they may have read.]

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This lesson focuses on Daniel 2, and the image in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream showing the “stone cut out of the mountain without hands” rolling forth to break a great statue into pieces. The story appears in nearly all of the old Sunday School Old Testament courses. Most simply tell the story; the few that analyze the dream to any extent focus on determining which kingdom is represented by the statue’s gold head, which by its silver chest, and so on. I have been unable to find a single lesson which focuses on the stone itself, representing the latter-day kingdom of God. This surprises me because I know that church members early in this dispensation recognized the establishment of the church as the beginning of the fulfillment of that prophecy, and I’m sure I remember hearing such lessons on multiple occasions. Perhaps they have been part of other Church courses of study, though, other than the Old Testament.

This lesson comes from the Gospel Doctrine course of 1928.
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For background, see here
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The database for programming your GPS, from the Juvenile Instructor, February 1910 –

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From the church magazines of 1928 —

A Difference

“Did the speaker electrify his audience?”

“No, he merely gassed it.”

Close Relationship

“What animal,” asked the teacher of the class in natural history, “makes the nearest approach to man?”

“The mosquito,” timidly ventured the little boy with the curly hair.

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From the Relief Society Magazine, May 1937 –

Lace Stockings

By Mary Ek Knowles

Ellen was rinsing the last of the week’s wash when the phone rang. She turned off the washer, wiped her wet hands on a hand towel, stepped with amazing skill over blocks, toys, and a rag dog with one eye, and cautioned Denny to “be quiet while Mummy answers the phone.”

“Hello.” it was Paul. Her heart skipped a beat, her dark eyes softened. Nice to feel that way about your husband after eleven years of married life.

“Mrs. Dale,” Paul’s voice informed her with studied seriousness, “we’re going out to a dinner at the Plaza Hotel.”

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From the Juvenile Instructor, October 1910 –

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Chronologies – “timelines,” or lists of significant dates with brief annotations – are a useful method for organizing data and presenting a brief picture of a person’s life or the history of an entire organization, nation, or even civilization.

You’ve probably made a chronology of your own life at some time or other, to outline your church service or work history or whatever. Paul Reeve and I included one in our Mormonism: A Historical Encyclopedia; there’s one at lds.org, Keepa’ninny Clair publishes Today in Church History, a variation on a chronology which lists events that happened on a given day in history regardless of the year.

Keepa’ninny Michelle Glauser sent in a link to a chronology of Mormon history at Religion Facts, a site which endeavors to present material on all religions in as neutral and open a manner as possible. Their chronology, reproduced in full below (with slight formatting changes due to the limitations of blogging software) is one of the more, um, anemic attempts to outline Mormon history that I have ever seen:

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From the Juvenile Instructor, December 1910 –

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Sooner or later – maybe both sooner and later – the Mormon faith promoting rumor mill will churn out another round of the old classic “Moroni dedicated the site of the Manti Temple.” The last time I heard it was at the end of the Book of Mormon Sunday School course two years ago, when our class handout included a “quotation” to that effect from Brigham Young, with the “citation” of Journal of Discourses – no volume or page, just the Journal. (Note: No hint of the story appears anywhere in the Journal.)

Most of the claims for this ancient dedication which have appeared in LDS publications over the years quote or paraphrase this paragraph:

Early on the morning of April 25, 1877, President Brigham Young asked Brother Warren S. Snow to go with him to the Temple hill. Brother Snow says, “We two were alone; President Young took me to the spot where the Temple was to stand; we went to the south-east corner, and President Young said, ‘Here is the spot where the Prophet Moroni stood and dedicated this piece of land for a Temple site, and that is the reason why the location is made here, and we can’t move it from this spot; and if you and I are the only persons that come here at high noon to-day, we will dedicate this ground.’”

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Enemy’s Son

by Margaret F. Bach

Illustrated by Lynnette Moench

The story of a little immigrant who was looking for a home – and love.

Previous Chapter

Chapter 11.

It began snowing early Christmas Eve and by the time Hans and Aunt Minnie were ready to go to church a blanket of white covered the ground and their footsteps crunched as they walked toward the truck.

“Are you sure you can manage those two poinsettias?” Aunt Minnie asked anxiously.

“Yes,” Hans assured her. It was his first time out since the fire and he as still a little weak.

“We’ll be a little early, but I want to get these plants placed before folks start arriving.”

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The inkjet printer, as sold by the future Deseret Book (from the Juvenile Instructor, October 1910) –

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