Methodists
CHAPTER 1 “ONE OF THE GREAT IRONIES OF AMERICAN RELIGIOUS HISTORY”: INTRODUCTION AND HISTORIOGRAPHICAL OVERVIEW In his 1993 address to the Mormon History Association, Nathan Hatch offered his assessment that “one of the great ironies of American religious history is the parallel origins of the Methodist and Mormon movements, the most revered and the most despised of American churches on the eve of the Civil War.”1 Expanding on some of the ideas expressed earlier in his The Democratization of American Christianity, Hatch then compared the two movements’ beginnings, noting both groups’ radical origins as small sects that stressed the reality of revelation from heaven, accepted the validity of miracles and prophetic dreams and visions, and emphasized experiencing the divine. “Both empowered ordinary people,” he wrote, “by taking their deepest spiritual impulses at face value, by shattering formal distinctions between lay and clergy, by releasing the entrepreneurial instincts of religious upstarts, and by incarnating the gospel in the vernacular—in preaching, print, and song.”2 However, Hatch stopped short of commenting on specific connections between the two groups—a curious omission considering that many early converts to Mormonism came from Methodist backgrounds and that Joseph Smith himself flirted with Methodism as a young man. This project thus began with a simple question in mind—did Methodism directly influence Mormonism? That is, are the similarities between early American Methodism and early Mormonism outlined by Hatch merely parallels, or is there a more direct connection between the two movements? Nathan Hatch was not the first to notice the similarities between Methodism and Mormonism, and I am certainly not the first to ask such questions. In fact, over the course of the last forty years, a number of historians studying Mormonism have pointed to both the ways that early Mormon theology, worldview, and church organization resembles that of their Methodist counterparts and commented that Mormonism seemed to attract those who had previously been Methodists.3 Among the more significant studies making these connections was Larry Porter’s 1971 dissertation on the origins of the Mormon Church in New York and Pennsylvania.4 Porter noted many important figures in the early LDS church who came from Methodist backgrounds, including Solomon Chamberlain, Brigham Young and his brothers, and Emma Hale Smith. He also analyzed Joseph Smith’s interest in Methodism as a teenager that ultimately led to Smith’s first vision experience.5 Three years later, in 1974, Laurence Yorgason’s master’s thesis confirmed that Methodist converts to Mormonism were not limited to those mentioned by Porter. In his demographic survey of one hundred individuals who converted to Mormonism between 1830 and 1837, Yorgason found that nearly 20% of those converts were Methodists at the time of their conversion to Mormonism—as many as came from any other religious group. He also discovered that 40% of the converts grew up in Methodist homes, making the number of those who had at some point affiliated with Methodism significantly higher than the next closest religious organization.6 A later study by Mark Grandstaff and Milton Backman of the “social origins of the Kirtland Mormons” found a similar percentage of Mormon converts who came from Methodist backgrounds. Roughly 25% of Mormons were previously Methodists at the time of their conversion, while over 30% had parents who were Methodists. Again, no other single religious group rivaled the Methodists in the number of converts to Mormonism in its early years.7 That a large percentage of early Latter-day Saints came from Methodist backgrounds is perhaps not surprising given the fact that by 1830, when the Mormon church was officially organized, the Methodist Episcopal Church was the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.8 But Mormon success among the Methodists was not limited to the United States. In 1990, a collection of essays on the Mormon experience in Canada was published. Richard Bennett’s study of Mormonism’s early presence in eastern Canada confirmed that Latter-day Saint missionaries found success among Methodists there, including a group of Primitive Methodist seekers that included future apostle and church president John Taylor.9 Mormonism experienced even greater success among Methodists across the Atlantic in the British Isles. Malcolm Thorp’s 1977 survey of “the religious backgrounds of Mormon converts in Britain” from 1837 to 1852 revealed that a disproportionate number of English converts came from Methodist backgrounds—something quite significant since there were four times as many Anglicans as Methodists in England at the time.10 Thorp’s analysis of Methodist converts to Mormonism was expanded upon first in 1992 by James Allen, Ronald Esplin, and David Whitaker in their study of the first apostolic missions to the British Isles (1837-1841), and the following year by Grant Underwood in his The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism.11 Both studies further explored the appeal of the Mormon gospel to 5 these English Methodists and also attempted to locate where these converts fell on the ever-expanding spectrum of Methodists in the early nineteenth century. Meanwhile, the possible influence of Methodism on Joseph Smith and his church began to receive further treatment as well. Both Donna Hill’s 1977 biography of Mormonism’s founding prophet and Richard Bushman’s 1984 Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism devoted some space to an analysis of the similarities between early Mormon beliefs and practices and those of the Methodists.12 Their initial ideas were then expanded upon by several later studies, including Janet Ellingson’s 1997 PhD dissertation, which noted several similarities between Methodist and Mormon church organization and worship services.13 Under the tutelage of Richard Bushman, Kathleen Flake and Marie Mackey each took on the details of the early Mormon conference system. Both concluded that the Methodist precedent was probably borrowed by Joseph Smith in developing his own system of conferences and councils.14 More recently, studies analyzing the appeal of Mormonism to early converts have pointed to different reasons for Mormonism’s success among Methodists. Steven Harper concluded that it was “the empirical and revelatory blend by which [Mormonism] simultaneously catered to the metaphysical, rationalistic, and democratic” that attracted early converts, including many Methodists.15 Stephen Fleming, meanwhile, has argued that “Mormonism spoke ... to those with a worldview imbibed through certain cultural and religious inheritances,” including an embracement of charismatic religious experience that appealed to “enthusiastic Methodists,” and well as “‘hickory’ Quakers” in the Delaware Valley.16 In spite of all of the research on the topic over the last forty years, no extended and detailed study to date has focused solely on the similarities between Methodism and Mormonism and the potential influences of the former on the latter. Stephen Fleming’s recent research probably comes the closest in attempts to answer that question, though it addresses larger issues as well.17 Fleming’s work, together with all of the above-mentioned studies, have been helpful to me in my own research for this project. In addition to providing me with a general understanding of the topic at hand, these various studies have pointed me to additional sources and raised further questions connected to Methodism and Mormonism. What is presented in the following chapters is not simply a synthesis of previous scholarship. My own extensive research in both Methodist and Mormon primary sources led me to additional insights not pointed out by previous historians. While each of chapters presents that research at length, two preliminary notes deserve mention here. First, not only did Methodists dominate the ranks of those who converted to Mormonism in its early years, but they also swelled the ranks of the church’s early hierarchy. In addition to Joseph Smith’s flirtation with Methodism, other early notable leaders with Methodist backgrounds include Brigham Young, Oliver Cowdery, John Taylor, George Q. Cannon, William E. McLellin, David W. Patten, and Thomas B. Marsh. In fact, eight of the original twelve members of Mormonism’s Council of Twelve Apostles had previously been Methodists at some point prior to their conversion to Mormonism.18 Additionally, several important women in the movement were raised as Methodists, including Joseph Smith’s wife Emma Hale, whose Methodist upbringing would ultimately shape key components of Mormonism, including its hymnology. These former Methodists were thus situated to leave an important mark on their new religious community. Secondly, the Methodists who converted to Mormonism generally embraced enthusiastic religion. In his analysis of Methodist converts to Mormonism in Great Britain, Grant Underwood noted that “not all Methodists seeking a charismatic religion were ‘come-outers.’” Some, including a number who later converted to Mormonism, could not bring themselves to formally dissociate with Wesleyanism. Therefore, it may be more helpful to look at Methodism as encompassing a spectrum of religious attitudes and ideas rather than one particular set of beliefs and behaviors. Toward one end of the spectrum would be found those individuals, whatever their denominational affiliation, who were interested above all else in enjoying a vital, gifted Christianity and who often espoused a millenarian eschatology. Given the tendency of early Mormon missionaries to stress both the “signs following belief” and the “signs of the times,” it is not surprising that a greater percentage of Methodist converts [to Mormonism] ... came from that end of the spectrum.19 In England, these Methodists often united with either the Primitive Methodist Church or other small schismatic groups that sought to maintain what they saw as pure (or “primitive” Wesleyanism). Underwood’s analysis appears to be equally true of those Methodists who converted to Mormonism in the United States and Canada. As the Methodist Episcopal Church increased in size and respectability in the first half of the nineteenth century, it gradually moved away from its charismatic and visionary Wesleyan heritage. Mormon missionaries found success among those Methodists who continued to embrace “experimental” religion. While many of these individuals maintained their membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, others united with the Reformed Methodists (including Brigham Young and his family) or other smaller Methodist schisms (like the one John Taylor was a part of in Canada). Whether in or out of the larger body of Methodists in the MEC, these converts to Mormonism—like those studied by Underwood in England—were “interested above all else in enjoying a vital, gifted Christianity.” I have not benefitted alone from Mormon historians and their work, either. The recent surge in the quality and quantity of scholarly treatments examining early American Methodism have similarly influenced my research. One year after his address to the Mormon History Association, Nathan Hatch published an article in which he lamented “the scholarly neglect of American Methodism.” “Methodism,” Hatch argued, “far more than Puritanism, offers insight into the distinct character of religious life in the United States.”20 The subsequent years have witnessed a veritable outpouring of scholarly works examining in great detail the Methodist experience in early America. Those particularly helpful to my won research include Dee Andrews’s The Methodists and Revolutionary America, David Hempton’s Methodism, Christine Heyrman’s Southern Cross, Cynthia Lyerly’s Methodism and the Southern Mind, Russell Richey’s Early American Methodism and The Methodist Conference in America, Lester Ruth’s A Little Heaven Below, Ann Taves’s Fits, Trances, and Visions, Karen Westerfield Tucker’s American Methodist Worship, John Wigger’s Taking Heaven By Storm, and a volume of essays edited by Nathan Hatch and John Wigger entitled Methodism and the Shaping of American Culture.21 Examining these influences transmitted from one community to another serves as an interesting case study of what French anthropologist Marcel Mauss termed the “contact and exchange” theory.22 Recent scholarship in the field of Religious Studies has borrowed Mauss’s thesis that every culture bears the imprints of groups it has come in contact with—that is, certain characteristics adopted and adapted to fit the group’s own needs and worldview. Catherine Albanese, for instance, explained that “whatever their ascribed religious identity, Americans were professing religions that bore the signs of contact with those who were other and different.”23 Albanese, together with Russell Richey, John Wigger, and other historians of early American Methodism have utilized the theory of contact and exchange to explore both the cultural matrix out of which Methodism arose and that which it fostered in early America. Richey’s 1991 volume, Early American Methodism, examined what he termed the “four languages of Methodism”—that is, the discursive communities that each helped shape Methodist identity in early America.24 Catherine Albanese summarized Richey’s argument by explaining that these four languages “were products of the contact” with other religions in America—“goods that they had received and integrated in and through an economy of religious exchange.”25 But, perhaps more importantly, Albanese noted, “Methodist contact worked outward as powerfully as it worked inward,” and pointed to John Humphrey Noyes’s Oneida community and the Holiness-Pentecostal movement as two examples of religions influenced directly by Methodism. I propose here that Mormonism presents an additional religious movement that emerged in the wake of the Second Great Awakening and, in its earliest manifestation, bore markers of Methodist influence. Comparative studies of religion necessarily present difficulties. Attempting to trace the genesis of one group’s theology and religious practices from another religious community is difficult because of the lack of primary sources that actually document such transmission. Such is the certainly the case in this study. In the preface to his 1984 book, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism, Richard Bushman noted the difficulty of tracing the origins of Mormon thought and experience: “In the first stages of composition this book was titled ‘The Origins of Mormonism,’” he noted. “The word ‘Origins’ was dropped when the actual complexities of identifying the sources of Mormon belief and experience bared themselves. An attempt to trace all the images, ideas, language, and emotional structure of a movement as elaborate as Mormonism became more evidently elusive and futile as the work went on.”26 John L. Brooke’s attempt at tracing the genesis of “Mormon cosmology” was notoriously criticized by Mormon historians for this very reason.27 One reviewer explained that “the primary problem with the volume is that it suffers from ... ‘parallelomania’”—that is, “the tendency to exaggerate similarities and the assumption that parallels prove provenance.”28 Recognizing those difficulties, I have attempted to be careful in not overstating what the sources actually state. While few serious scholars of Mormonism would doubt that Joseph Smith and his followers did, in fact, draw from his cultural surroundings, the trouble is attempting to demonstrate the specific sources of influence. Nevertheless, by paying close attention to the language used by early Mormons to describe their religious experience, one can draw parallels that suggest a direct influence. I argue in the pages that follow that Methodism was one of the more important sources which influenced the shape of the early Mormon movement Chapter 2 analyzes the conversion narratives of the early converts to Mormonism who came from Methodist backgrounds. I show that these converts generally maintained a positive view of Methodism even after their conversion to Mormonism, and viewed their belief in dreams and visions and the acceptance of charismatic religious experience they were taught while Methodists as instrumental in their eventual acceptance of the Mormon message. Chapter 3 explores an extended analysis of Joseph Smith’s various recollections of his “first vision” within the context of Methodist conversion narratives of the era. By analyzing the first vision within the Methodist context, I seek to harmonize key discrepancies in Smith’s early and later narratives while still allowing each version to speak for itself. Chapter 4 surveys early Mormon church organization and worship and compares it to that of early American Methodism in an effort to better contextualize early Mormonism within the culture from which it arose and developed. This chapter concludes with a brief summary of the lasting influence of Methodism on Mormon religiosity. I have limited the scope of my study by both location and time. For a variety of reasons, I have chosen to focus almost exclusively on Mormonism from the time of Joseph Smith’s first vision in 1820 until 1838, when the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints moved from Kirtland, Ohio, to Missouri and then to Nauvoo, Illinois. The move to Nauvoo was accompanied by an expansion of Mormon theology and worship that took it in directions that went far beyond previous norms (and away from its early Methodist influences). Because of the chronological scope of my thesis, I have also limited my study to Methodism and Mormonism in the United States. 13 CHAPTER 2 “I HAD RELIGION, BUT MY MIND WAS NOT WHOLLY SATISFIED”: METHODIST CONVERTS TO MORMONISM AND EARLY MORMON IDENTITY Joseph Smith’s autobiographical narrative of Mormonism’s beginnings—penned in 1838-39 and now included in the Latter-day Saint canon of scripture—rehearsed, among other things, the events leading up to what has become commonly known as the “First Vision.” This vision served as the catalyst for what Mormons collectively call “the Restoration.” According to Smith, the vision came in response to his deeply-felt concern for his personal salvation and confusion over which of the various competing sects popular in his rural New York community taught the true gospel. “Who of all these parties are right? Or are they all wrong together?” Smith wondered. After “attend[ing] their several meetings as often as occasion would permit,” he recalled, “my mind became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect, and I felt some desire to be united with them.”1 There is some evidence that Joseph did, in fact, briefly affiliate with the local Methodist congregation.2 As noted in chapter one, many other early Mormons—on both sides of the Atlantic—came from the ranks of Methodism as well. This is perhaps not surprising given the fact that by 1830, when the Mormon church was officially organized, the Methodist Episcopal Church was the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.3 But it appears that an inordinate percentage of Mormon converts came from Methodist backgrounds, either being raised in a home with Methodist parents and/or uniting with Methodism as adults.4 Mormon missionaries likewise found great success among Canadian Methodists in the late 1830s, and in similar fashion across the Atlantic, Methodism provided “the source of a disproportionate number of early English converts”—something quite significant since there were four times as many Anglicans as Methodists in England at the time.5 Historian Grant Underwood has observed that Mormonism’s “kinship with early Methodism did not go unnoticed by the Saints,” and has pointed to evidence that they felt some connection with John Wesley and his church. Parley P. Pratt, noted Mormon apostle and missionary, and the religion’s most prolific author, included one of Wesley’s sermons in the British Mormon periodical, The Latter-Day Saints’ Millennial Star with the headline “JOHN WESLEY A LATTER-DAY SAINT, in Regard to the Spiritual Gifts and the Apostasy of the Church!!”6 Mormons, however, were not always quite as enthusiastic in their appraisals of Wesleyan religion. Just three years prior to dubbing Wesley a sort of proto-Mormon, Pratt decried Methodism in his 1838 pamphlet, Truth Vindicated. Written as a response to a “Mr. Sunderland, a Methodist editor,” Pratt declared Methodism “a system of idolatry; a false and perverted Gospel,” and “a system of priestcraft of the deepest dye.”7 Pratt was not alone in his seemingly contradictory views of Methodism. Many early Latter-day Saints—including important Mormon leaders Brigham Young, John Taylor, and Thomas B. Marsh, who came from Methodist backgrounds—reflected similarly on their affiliation with Methodism. It is those converts to Mormonism who came from Methodist backgrounds who are the subjects of this chapter. More specifically, this chapter analyzes how those individuals rhetorically situated their prior affiliation with Methodism in their newly-assumed identities as Mormons. To better contextualize this analysis, it is important to look at the ways that Mormons in the nineteenth century more generally contrasted themselves and their religion to the larger culture of antebellum America. Detailed studies of how Mormons related to specific religion are limited, both in number and in scope. What has been done has focused primarily on Catholics and Jews.8 What is needed is a better understanding how Mormons viewed themselves and their standing as God’s chosen people in relation to their immediate, primarily evangelical Protestant neighbors, with whom they shared a number of communal characteristics, including theology and manner of worship. This chapter seeks, in part, to fill this historiographical gap by examining how early Mormons viewed Methodism, as revealed in their public and private discourse and writings. Studies of Mormonism’s relationship to the larger Evangelical Protestant culture in which it was born and in which it developed have emphasized the discursive boundary markers used by early Mormon preachers and writers in their collective attempt to establish their identity as the divinely-appointed heir to Christ’s New Testament church. R. Laurence Moore argued that such an approach was necessary for the nascent church, suggesting that “Mormons had to invent an identity for themselves and that required them to maintain certain fictions of cultural apartness.” He ultimately concluded that Mormons were different because they said they were different and because those claims, frequently advanced in the most obnoxious way possible, prompted others to agree and to treat them as such. The notion of Mormon difference, that is, was a deliberate invention elaborated over time.9 To Moore, this rhetorical aspect of early Mormonism is the distinguishing characteristic of Latter-day Saint identity in antebellum America. It began with Joseph Smith’s narrative of Mormonism’s beginnings. As discussed above, Smith recorded that his “object in going to enquire of the Lord was to know which [church] to join.” The response he received set the tone for later Latter-day Saint attitudes towards the Christian community. “I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong, and the personage who addressed me said that all their Creeds were an abomination in his sight [and] that those professors were all corrupt.”10 Other historians and religious scholars have pointed to other distinguishing marks of the early Latter-day Saint movement, such as restorationism and millennialism, and argued that they are better avenues through which to understand early Mormon identity.11 However, even those authors admit that Mormon sermons and writings—which reveal how Mormons saw themselves—are crucial to understanding that identity.12 Richard Hughes, in his work examining the restorationist impulse in early Mormonism, stated that Mormons “put an infinite distance between themselves and their religious neighbors by identifying themselves” as God’s chosen people, the same as Israelites of old and New Testament Christians were. “This notion of restoration made it abundantly clear,” he suggested, “that God had sanctioned one true church and that all others were false.” Furthermore 18 this identity left “no room for abstractions, ambiguities, or shades of gray.”13 The conclusions of these authors are in need of moderate revision; an examination of early Latter-day Saint writings reveals that the attitudes of many Mormons towards certain Christian groups—especially Methodists—were more nuanced. It appears that the generalized statements of historians like Laurence Moore and Richard Hughes have only taken into account how Mormons saw themselves in contrast to the larger and vaguely-defined evangelical Christian world in which they lived. This approach, however, ignores another crucial element that directly affected how individual converts to Mormonism defined their new religious identity—how they situated their previous religious associations in conversion narratives and personal testimonies. While early Mormon rhetoric concerning an apostate Christian world and the necessity of a restoration certainly did effectively create a distinct Mormon identity, some of the ways in which Mormon preachers and writers constructed Methodism in their writings demonstrates that there was indeed occasional but significant “abstractions, ambiguities, [and] shades of gray” in efforts to contrast Mormonism with its Christian neighbors. While many Mormons routinely criticized the doctrines of creedal Christianity and those they portrayed as its hypocritical practitioners, others—including many Mormons who converted from Methodism—presented a far more sympathetic portrait of Methodism. Their time as Methodists was seen as crucial to their eventual acceptance of the Mormon message. Recent research in the fields of American religious history and cultural anthropology has begun to analyze how individuals in New Religious Movements and charismatic groups have negotiated their prior religious identity.14 In his recently-published monograph on the rise of Holiness Christianity and Pentecostalism in the American South, for example, historian Randall Stephens explores how Pentecostal converts from the Holiness movement in twentieth-century America talked and wrote about their prior Holiness affiliation post-conversion. He concludes that the “new pentecostal message compelled converts to concede that their former holiness experiences” were insufficient.15 Individuals then constructed an image of Holiness Christianity in their minds in one of two ways—they saw their prior religion as either incomplete or inauthentic. This inclusion of their former religious affiliation in their narratives of conversion to the new religious movement was crucial.16 “Inauthentic” carried with it the connotation of being false in some sense, and expressions of this sort were often found in specific critiques of Methodism and the Holiness movement. Pentecostal convert H.H. Goff, for example, compared “the holiness people” to “the foolish virgins without the oil” because they did not accept certain spiritual gifts.17 Similar examples can be found in the writings and sermons of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, and other Mormon converts from Methodism. Joseph Smith’s stated attitude towards Methodism squares with his generally negative portrayal of other Christian groups. While Smith may have been “somewhat partial to the Methodist sect” as a young teenager, it appears that as he grew older, his views grew more negative. In one sermon in 1834 he “exposed the Methodist Discipline in its black deformity,”18 and on another occasion expressly denounced Methodism for “hav[ing] creeds which a man must believe or be kicked out of their church.”19 At an 1835 meeting in which the High Council was to determine whether to accept A.J. Squires back into full fellowship, who sought to return to the Mormon fold after “he had been in temptation and fallen into error, so much so as to go and join the Methodists,” Smith addressed the council and “spoke at considerable length on the impropriety of turning away from the truth and going after a people so destitute of the spirit of righteousness as the Methodists.” 20 More usually, though, he simply grouped Methodism together with other religions in his general critiques and comments on other Christian religions. In an 1843 sermon, he thus admitted that some good could be found in other religions and counseled his followers to “embrace ... any truth” found among the “Presbyterians, ... Baptist[s], Methodist[s] &c.”—to “get all the good in the world” in order to “come out a pure Mormon.”21 In an 1844 sermon on “the doctrin[e] of Election,” meanwhile, he focused on the contrast between the Presbyterian and Methodist theology. The doctrin that the Prysbeterians & Methodist have quarreled so much about once in grace always in grace, or falling away from grace I will say something about, they are both wrong, truth takes a road between them both. ... the doctrin of the scriptures & the spirit of Elijah would show them both fals & take a road between them both.22 Brigham Young was likewise critical of certain aspects of Methodist religion. In his case, it was not that Methodism’s unscriptural doctrine that bothered him, but rather a lack of emphasis on theological and doctrinal matters altogether that left him unsatisfied. In reflecting upon his religious wanderings and confusions as a young man, he remembered going to hear the noted Methodist itinerant Lorenzo Dow preach. “I, although young in years and lacking experience,” Young recalled, “had thought a great many times that I would like to hear some man who could tell me something, when he opened the Bible, about the Son of God, the will of God, what the ancients did and received, saw and heard and knew pertaining to God and heaven.” So I went to hear Lorenzo Dow. He stood up some of the time, and he sat down some of the time; he was in this position and in that position, and talked two or three hours, and when he got through I asked myself, “What have you learned from Lorenzo Dow?” and my answer was, “Nothing, nothing but morals.” He could tell the people they should not work on the Sabbath day; they should not lie, swear, steal, commit adultery, &c., but when he came to teaching the things of God he was as dark as midnight. 23 John Taylor’s harshest criticism of Methodists came in response to attacks leveled at Mormonism during his time as a missionary in the British Isles. While laboring on the Isle of Man in 1840, Taylor received a cold response from the local Methodist minister, who derided Mormonism and urged his congregants to steer clear of the Latter-day Saint 22 missionaries. In response, Taylor authored three anti-Methodist pamphlets. The title of the last one captures the essence of the content and tone of all three—Truth Defended and Methodism Weighed in the Balance and Found Wanting.24 Taking a page out of Parley P. Pratt’s influential tract A Voice of Warning, Taylor compared Methodist teachings concerning the nature of God, ordinances, and authority to the Bible and, not surprisingly, found Methodism wanting in a column-by-column comparison. It mirrored Pratt’s previous comparison of Mormonism to “false Christianity of the nineteenth century” in general, except that Taylor compared biblical quotes with excerpts from the Methodist Discipline.25 Taylor also singled out Methodism’s attachment to their creeds and their Discipline, arguing that “every one who is acquainted with Methodism knows... [that] they are considered of that importance that the neglect to attend to, their mode of church government and believe in them will exclude a preacher from his office, and a member from the church, although they may fulfil the whole law of God.”26 Furthermore, Taylor suggested, “the discipline is held sacred, and its authority considered equal, nay superior, to the scriptures.” In an attempt to win converts Taylor proposed that “if a conscientious man only saw into the nature of the discipline which he subscribed to, an 23 profess to believe in, he would at once be led to lay it aside as absurd, unscriptural, dogmatical, and dangerous.”27 Sometimes, however, these same leading Mormons—like many of the Holiness converts to Pentecostalism Randall Stephens studied—could talk about Methodism not as “inauthentic,” but rather as “incomplete.” Seeing Holiness religion as simply “incomplete,” Stephens suggested, left open the option to construct one’s previous religious affiliation as an important step in embracing the full gospel truth. Whereas H.H. Goff focused on what Holiness Christians lacked, other Pentecostal preachers like G.F. Taylor highlighted, “the doctrines of sanctification, divine healing, and the premillennal coming of Jesus” he was taught in the Holiness movement “were precursors” to his accepting the doctrines of “baptism of the Spirit and tongues speech” that he encountered and embraced in Pentecostal religion.28 Similar examples can be found in the writings of nineteenth-century Mormon converts from Methodism. The most striking example of this pertaining to Joseph Smith is also one of the most problematic because it comes not from a Mormon source, but a Methodist one, and no corroborating evidence has been found to substantiate the episode. In his autobiography, the noted Methodist circuit rider Peter Cartwright recalled a meeting he had had with Joseph Smith in Springfield, Illinois, at some point during the early 1840s. Cartwright remembered that the two of them “fell into a free conversation on the subject of religion and Mormonism in particular,” and that Smith told him that “he believed that 24 among all the Churches in the world the Methodist was the nearest right, and that, as far as they went, they were right.” “Indeed,” said Joe, “if the Methodists would only advance a step or two further, they would take the world. We Latter-day Saints are Methodists, as far as they have gone, only we have advanced further, and if you would come in and go with us, we could sweep not only the Methodist Church, but all others, and you would be looked up to as one of the Lord’s greatest prophets.”29 These comments attributed to Smith are even more difficult to accept as accurate in light of other statements made by him concerning Methodism throughout his ministry. While there is no record that authenticates Cartwright’s attributed statement to Joseph Smith, the suggestion that Methodism contained more truth than other religions of the era, and consequently was a more effective instrument in preparing individuals for the Mormon message, found expression in the words of Brigham Young, John Taylor, and other early Mormons. Both Young and Taylor consistently spoke of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, in positive terms. In an 1865 sermon on the subjects of “final rewards and punishments,” Brigham Young reflected on the state of “that celebrated reformer,” John Wesley. “Where is John Wesley's abode in the other world?” he asked, and then answered his own question. He is not where the Father and the Son live [because] ... he did not receive the gospel as preached by Jesus Christ and His apostles; it was not then upon the earth. The power of the Holy Priesthood was not then among men; but I suppose that Mr. Wesley lived according to the best light he had, and tried to improve upon it all the days of his life. Where is the departed spirit of that celebrated reformer? It occupies a better place than ever entered his heart to conceive of when he was in the flesh. 25 In another sermon, Young reminisced on his apostolic mission to England years before. He remembered that he “never passed John Wesley's church in London without stopping to look at it.” Young then proceeded to answer his own question regarding not only Wesley’s state in the hereafter, but also his place in history. “Was he a good man?” Young asked. “Yes; I suppose him to have been, by all accounts, as good as ever walked on this earth, according to his knowledge. Has he obtained a rest? Yes, and greater than ever entered his mind to expect.” Why could he not build up the kingdom of God on the earth? He had not the Priesthood; that was all the difficulty he labored under. Had the Priesthood been conferred upon him, he would have built up the kingdom of God in his day as it is now being built up. He would have introduced the ordinances, powers, grades, and quorums of the Priesthood: but, not holding the Priesthood, he could not do it.31 At least in this instance, the difference between Mormonism and Methodism had nothing to do with heretical doctrine or hypocritical ministers engaging in priestcraft, as other Mormon writers (and even Young himself) had occasionally suggested. Rather, he emphasized that it was a simple matter of priesthood authority being present only in Mormonism. John Taylor likewise seemed to hold Methodism in a privileged position. This should not be too surprising, since Taylor had been a preacher and class leader in a small Canadian Christian group that split from the larger Methodist community and followed what they saw as pure Wesleyanism.32 In his unpublished autobiography, Taylor recalled his own conversion to Methodism: When I was about sixteen years of age, I heard the Methodist doctrine preached and as it seemed to me more of a matter of fact, personal thing that the Church of England, with which I was nominally united, I became a Methodist. I was strictly sincere in my religious faith and was very zealous to learn what I then considered the truth; believing that every good and perfect gift proceeded from the Lord.33 Central to Taylor’s subsequent conversion to Mormonism was this quest for truth. While he acknowledged enjoying “frequent manifestations in dreams” during his time as a Methodist, Taylor suggested that the Methodism of his day was not the pure Methodism introduced and preached by John Wesley and other early Methodists.34 In his responses to the anti-Mormon rhetoric he encountered while a missionary in the British Isles, Taylor drew parallels between the persecution experienced by the earliest Methodists and that he experienced as a Mormon. In response to these attacks leveled at his religion by British Methodist ministers, Taylor suggested that “Mr. Heys seems to have forgot the time when Methodist ministers were belied and slandered, as we are now belied and slandered by him. He must recollect that it is not long ago since the finger of scorn was pointed at the Methodists, and the lip of reproach and tongue of scandal were employed against them.” Early Methodism, then, was a companion of sorts to Mormonism, as evidenced in Taylor’s mind by the persecution they had received as an upstart and new sect. “I would have him to remember ‘the rock from whence he was hewn; and the pit from whence he was dug,’” Taylor wrote. “Then they were despised, persecuted, and cast out; but is it different with them now.” He concluded by invoking Wesley and other early Methodists as preachers of a purer religion. “Surely Messrs. John Wesley, John Nelson, Fletcher, and Bramwell, who were ornaments of the Methodist society, would have been ashamed to have been found in the situation in which Messrs. Heys and Livesey have placed themselves in.”35 Based on the statements of Young and Taylor, it appears that while John Wesley held a privileged place in their minds, Methodists of their day did not. Other early Mormons picked up on this trope as well. William Appleby, for example, wrote in an 1844 pamphlet that “there are hundreds and thousands, meek humble hearted souls, ... who are living up to the best light and knowledge they have received.”36 Appleby then singled out John Wesley as the example of such persons. After quoting Wesley on the necessity of spiritual gifts in Christ’s church and again on the issue of Priesthood authority, Appleby concluded: [B]ut he nor any of the rest ever said that God had given them a special revelation, to build up a church. They have a part of the Gospel, but not the fullness of it. But as I said before they have been the means of doing much good, and they will be rewarded for it. It has paved the way for the establishing of the Kingdom Daniel had reference to, that was to be set up in the “latter days” by the God of heaven, and not by man.37 While in the example of John Taylor, the compliments paid to Wesley and his religion appear to be nothing more than an apologetic response to anti-Mormon material, in the case of William Appleby, and to a lesser extent, that of Brigham Young, a more 28 direct connection between Methodism and Mormonism is illustrated. Their writings and sermons cited above employ a certain rhetorical strategy that demonstrates an effort to negotiate their previous religious affiliation with the Methodist movement. This mode of discourse further indicates their high appraisal of John Wesley and some of his fundamental teachings. Wesley’s Methodism thus “paved the way” for the advent of Mormonism. Both Young and Appleby pointed to Priesthood authority as the distinguishing feature that Methodism lacked. This trope is even more pronounced in the writings of other Latter-day Saint converts from Methodism. These individuals likewise situated Methodism in their narratives as an instrument to prepare the world for Mormonism. However, in these instances, it took on a more personal tone. These persons suggested that Methodism was specifically well-suited in preparing them to personally receive the Mormon gospel. Appleby’s own autobiography illustrates an awareness of this very approach. Appleby quoted one Alfred Wilson, whom Appleby had converted to Mormonism while on a mission in New Jersey. Wilson explained, “I enjoyed myself somewhat and received a certain portion of the Spirit of the lord while in the Methodist Church. [But] I never knew what true religion or the Spirit of the Lord was until I became a member of the Church to which I belong.”38 John Taylor’s wife, Leonora Cannon, likewise maintained a positive view of Methodism after converting to Mormonism. Her niece, Ann Cannon Woodbury, remembered that her aunt told her that she “enjoy[ed] herself in class meetings” while a 29 Methodist.39 Nancy Tracy similarly remembered that she “took great delight” in attending Methodist “Sunday Schools” as a youth. “I wanted to get religion and to be as happy as others seemed to be,” she wrote, “but I could feel no different.”40 Still, she “thought the Methodists the best of any” and continued attending their meeting until the first Mormon elders came through her town and she became convinced of the truth of their message.41 Brigham Young’s brother Phinehas likewise noted that during his time as a Reformed Methodist, “I had religion, but my mind was not wholly satisfied,”42 and Orson Hyde remembered that while a Methodist, “I enjoyed myself as well as the light and knowledge I then had would allow me. I believe that God had mercy and compassion upon me, and that if I had died at that time, I should have received all the happiness and glory that I could appreciate or enjoy.”43 Henry Boyle, who like Hyde briefly affiliated with Campbellism after Methodism but before Mormonism, sounded almost exactly like Hyde when he commented that during his time as a Methodist, he “was not satisfied that all was right. [Y]et I done the best I knew how, I lived up to the light and knowledge I was in possession of.”44 George Frederick Jarvis similarly described his own frustrations as a Methodist. While he was discouraged that no existing church fit the ancient pattern, he remained a Methodist until he found one that did.45 Lorenzo Dow Young, who like his brother Brigham, struggled to fully embrace the Methodism of his brothers, nevertheless admitted that he “was somewhat affected by the intense religious feeling” at Methodist revivals.46 Expressions of this sort, in which converts to Mormonism remembered their years as Methodists with fondness, appear to have been accepted by the Mormon missionaries who taught them. Samuel Harrison, for example, recalled a conversation he had with a Methodist man who was contemplating converting to Mormonism. “He asked me if I thought that the Methodists and other religious people enjoyed any thing like religion, or what it was that caused them to feel happy,” Harrison wrote. I told him that every person that lived up to the light that they had, always felt justified, “but,” said I, “if light is made known to them more than what they already have, and they reject that light, they never will feel like as they did before they knew it. Now I appeal to you as a man—can you, with the light that you have received from the Latter-day Saints, enjoy the Methodist religion?” He said, “No, I can not.” “Now,” said I, “wherein you have rejoiced in Methodism, embrace the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and you shall rejoice ten fold.”47 John Smith recalled a similar experience with a prospective convert—a “preacher... about 60 years of age a German by birth.” Ever since first becoming convinced of the Mormon message, Smith recorded, this man “had been preaching [the] whole gospel as he called it.” Still, he asserted that Methodism contained some truth and was “very usefull.”48 This manner of distancing themselves from their evangelical neighbors, then, did not necessitate completely rejecting and condemning their former religious affiliation. Rather, it was a matter of degrees of truth. In Methodism, these converts felt, they had found portions of true religion that uniquely prepared them to accept the fullness of the gospel (or “the whole gospel,” to use one convert’s words). The portion of true religion most of these converts, both male and female, reportedly enjoyed while Methodists was generally centered around charismatic experience. Many of the spiritual gifts recorded in the New Testament by Paul were singled out by converts as instrumental in the initial appeal of Methodism and later as crucial to their acceptance of Mormonism.49 Stephen Fleming’s recent insightful research on Mormon converts in the Delaware Valley concluded that “many converts ... showed an eagerness to embrace the Mormons’ promised supernaturalism when the missionaries arrived,” and that “early American Methodists were likely candidates to find Mormon supernaturalism appealing since Methodism itself drew upon the same impulses.”50 Thomas B. Marsh, one of the original twelve apostles called by Joseph Smith in 1835, affiliated with Methodism briefly before leaving organized religion and becoming an independent “seeker” before uniting with the Latter-day Saints. The story of his conversion to Mormonism illustrates the importance of the visionary culture embraced by 101 “perfection”—the two most commonly used words used by sanctified Methodists in describing their experience.82 But even for those who did not experience this second blessing, attendance at the quarterly meeting often refreshed and revived one’s commitment to the pursuit of holiness. Jessee Lee thus celebrated the close of one camp meeting by rejoicing in “the quickening influence of the Holy Ghost upon the hearts of believers.”83 Another Methodist leader noted that the camp meeting’s primary purpose was to serve as a sacred retreat for the church to meet together and then “return to the world transformed.”84 Thus worship at quarterly meetings served to spiritually empower the attendees so that they might increase in their daily devotion and piety. This notion of spiritual empowerment—of an additional blessing bestowed upon a community of believers gathered for that purpose—found expression in early Mormonism, too. In July 1830, Joseph Smith received a revelation announcing that the church “should go to the Ohio,” with the promise that “there you shall be endowed with power from on high.”85 In the months following the community’s move, additional revelations repeated the promise, this time with further instructions. A revelation received in early 1831 commanded the Saints, “sanctify yourselves and ye shall be endowed with power.”86 In process of time, the promised endowment came to be connected with the construction of the temple and intimately tied to notions of the priesthood. In 1834, Joseph Smith received a revelation in which the Lord explained that “the first elders of my church should receive their endowment from on high in my house, which I have commanded to be built unto my name in the land of Kirtland.”87 It was in and through the priesthood that Latter-day Saints “found a key to the godly powers they longed for.”88 By locating spiritual empowerment in priesthood, Joseph Smith took a different approach than Methodists and other evangelicals. Whereas Methodists sought to convict sinners of guilt and to sanctify converted souls through preaching and exhortation aimed at humbling the individual, Smith utilized a system of ritual washing, anointing, and blessing.89 Nevertheless, the endowment of power sought by the Saints maintained key components suggestive of Methodist influence. Methodists in nineteenth-century America imbued their camp meetings with sacred significance, utilizing a variety of biblical allusions to describe the events that took place. Among the biblical imagery used were allusions to temple building and the day of Pentecost.90 One Methodist thus described the camp meeting setting: “It is like God’s ancient and holy hill of Zion on her brightest festival days, when the priests conducted the processions of the people to the glorious temple of Jehovah.”91 Philip Gatch thus suggested that the groves in which Methodists worshipped were “God’s first temples” while others variously referred to camp meetings as “the house of God” and the “gate of heaven.”92 Yet another Methodist, meanwhile, noted that no other event he could think of could compare to the camp meeting in terms of the pouring out of God’s spirit, “except the account in scripture of the day of Pentecost. Never, I believe, was the like seen since the apostolic age.”93 Such descriptions, of course, bear striking resemblance to the language used by Mormons to describe the events that took place during the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, or as they preferred to call it, the “House of the Lord.” Joseph Smith thus prayed in the dedicatory prayer: O Jehovah, have mercy upon this people, and as all men sin forgive the transgressions of they people, and let them be blotted out forever. Let the anointing of thy ministers be sealed upon them with power from on high. Let it be fulfilled upon those on the day of Pentecost; let the gift of tongues be poured out upon thy people, even cloven tongues as of fire, and the interpretation thereof. And let thy house be filled, as with a rushing mighty wind, with thy glory.94 Both Methodists and Mormons thus drew upon such biblical imagery because each sought to confirm their identity as God’s chosen people in the same sense that Old Testament temple builders and New Testament disciples were God’s people. But such expressions—both within Methodism and Mormonism—were not merely metaphors. The physical manifestation of God’s presence was very real to both groups. Conversions, visions, glossolalia, and the pouring out of God’s Holy Spirit permeate the reports of both Methodist camp meetings and Mormon temple worship. One report of a Methodist camp meeting in 1816 summarized that “[t]hey have indeed a little Pentecostal season! The dear little children are speaking with new tongues, and in a new language.”95 Ezekiel Cooper recalled that at one quarterly meeting, “How the love of heaven burned on the altars of out hearts! The place was truly awful because of God’s presence! It appeared like the very suburbs of heaven.”96 Nancy Tracy described her experience at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple in similar language: In the spring following, the Temple was finished and dedicated. We continued for two days, and they were two of the happiest days of my life. The fitting hymn that was composed for the occasion was “The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning.” It was verily true that the Heavenly Influence rested down upon that house, and the people were glorious and long to be remembered. Heavenly beings appeared to many. I attended both days. I felt that it was heaven on earth, and I said, “Shall we always enjoy such blessings?”97 Over the course of four months—from January to April 1836—Latter-day Saints in Kirtland, Ohio, experienced what they most often referred to as a “pentecostal season.” Throughout January, February, and March, Latter-day Saints gathered within the temple’s walls to sing, pray, exhort, and enjoy and abundance of spiritual gifts. As Steven Harper summarized, “the Kirtland Temple made these witnesses heirs of the Israelite Patriarchs and the Apostolic Church.”98 During those same months, Joseph Smith instructed the priesthood of the church, introducing various ordinances that included the 105 ritual washing of feet and anointing with oil. Additionally, he taught them an organized shout as another facet of proper worship in the temple. The “Hosanna Shout,” as it has come to be known among Mormons, has received only moderate attention from historians. Richard Bushman, in his biography of Joseph Smith, noted that the Kirtland Temple dedication “closed with a ceremonial gesture—a shout in the Methodist tradition,” but offered no further commentary.99 Earlier treatments of the shout’s origin and history emphasized that the shout was a part of Joseph Smith’s restoration of proper temple worship and that he probably first became aware of such practices from his translation of the Old and New Testaments.100 More recently, Jacob Olmstead attempted to situate the Hosanna Shout within the developing thought of Joseph Smith and the surrounding culture of his day. As Olmstead showed, the spontaneous shouts of joy and praise common to the culture of evangelical revivals in the early nineteenth century found expression in early Mormonism, too. In worship meetings and following baptisms and blessings, various Latter-day Saints like Ebenezer Robinson “shouted aloud, ‘Glory to God.’”101 Noting that the organized shouts of Hosanna in 1836 appear to represent something different than those spontaneous shouts, Olmstead argued that “the shout,...led by a priesthood authority and ...given as a congregation ... illustrate[s] the critical differences between the shouting practiced by Protestant religions of the day and the ritual introduced by Joseph Smith.”102 Such a characterization of the shouting common to camp meetings is only partially correct, though. Methodists in the early American republic were widely known for their ritual shouting at camp meetings. In contrast to the erratic and more random individual shouts of praise and joy common to evangelical (as well as early Mormon) worship, the “shouting Methodists” earned their nickname and reputation for the systematized shouts that Ann Taves described as a form of “interactive performance,” in which Methodist preachers responded to the “congregational pressure” to “develop a more interactive preaching style. This congregational pressure,” she explains, “most likely had its roots in the call-and-response styles to which Africans were accustomed.”103 What started as a grassroots movement to adapt interactive performance as a component of public worship eventually became a largely-accepted approach to camp meeting religion by both black and white Methodists in the early nineteenth century, and was later influential on the worship styles of other religious communities that had roots in the Methodist tradition. Taves identified Methodist-turned-mesmerist La Roy Sunderland, Methodist-turned-Adventist Ellen White, and the Holiness and Pentecostal movements of the later nineteenth century as examples, arguing each was “informed by and in turn reconstituted the [Methodist] shout tradition.”104 Like the forms of shouting developed by these Methodists, the “Hosanna Shout” practiced by Latter-day Saints was intentional and planned. In addition to engaging both clergy and laity in an interactive performance, Methodist shouting was reinforced with “movement and music,” both intended to invoke God’s presence. While the bodily movement in camp meetings often included the various jumping, barking, and falling exercises so widely-associated with camp meetings in early America (and so severely criticized by Joseph Smith and other early Mormon leaders), it could also manifest itself in congregants forming prayer circles or simultaneously standing all at once in response to the pouring out of God’s Spirit on the congregation.105 Neither of these latter manifestations was foreign to early Mormonism, and the second manifestation, in fact, occurred during the course of the 1836 temple dedication. Near the close of the meeting, Joseph Smith explained, Brother George A. Smith arose and began to prophesy, when a noise was heard like the sound of a rushing mighty wind, which filled the Temple, and all the congregation simultaneously arose, being moved upon by an invisible power; many began to speak in tongues and prophesy; other saw glorious visions; and I beheld the Temple was filled with angels, which fact I declared to the congregation.106 The music selected to be sung by the congregation at the Kirtland Temple dedication likewise reinforced the shouting tradition of Methodist camp meetings. One hymn sung—entitled “The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning,”—was written specifically for the temple dedication by W.W. Phelps. It reiterated not only the biblical imagery used to describe the worship services in the temple—including allusions to both the Old and New Testament symbolism mentioned earlier—but celebrated the shout as an integral part of temple worship: We’ll sing and we’ll shout with His armies of heaven: Hosanna, hosanna to God and the Lamb! Let glory to them in the highest be given, Henceforth and forever, amen and amen.107 The hymn immediately followed the hosanna shout, thus driving home the message and further engaging the congregation in the interactive worship at hand. Worship in the first Mormon temple, then, shared much in common with the camp meetings of the Methodists. Mormons sought to establish their temple as a sacred place. Like their Methodist forebears, these Mormons defined sacred space by utilizing biblical typology in their discourse, singing, and praying—all aimed at producing a sacred space “in which God’s presence and power might be known.”108 Yet for Mormons, the shout took on new meanings. Whereas the shout was a means of celebrating God’s immediacy in Methodist worship, in Mormon temple worship it was “an important element to the sealing portion of [the] ordinances” introduced by Joseph Smith in 1836.109 Joseph Smith thus recorded in his journal the day of the dedication that “We then sealed the proceedings of the day by shouting hosanna to God and the Lamb 3 times sealing it each time with Amen, Amen, and Amen.”110 It is also important to note that whereas Methodists repeatedly alluded to the shout at the laying of the cornerstone of Zerubbabel’s temple in Ezra 3 in an effort to justify the practice of shouting, Mormons employed no such biblical imagery in their descriptions of the Hosanna Shout.111 At most, they indirectly drew upon the biblical imagery of the gathering of Israel and the day of Pentecost, but only insomuch as the shout was a part of the larger services conducted in the Kirtland Temple. The dedicatory services of the Kirtland Temple incorporated more than just “a shout in the Methodist tradition,” though. As mentioned above, the services—held over the course of several days—resembled the protracted meetings of Methodist quarterly conferences and included a variety of meetings both large and small. Two days after the dedication, Smith met with his counselors in the temple, where they felt inspired to gather the leading authorities of the church together for a special meeting. What started as a meeting of instruction and exhortation that appeared no different than a typical prayer meeting ended up lasting all night. The group of gathered elders performed ritual washing of one another’s feet, and then, according to Smith’s journal, “we partook of the bread and wine. The Holy S[p]irit rested down upon us and we continued in the Lords house all night prophesying and giving glory to God.”112 The next morning, a larger group of brethren assembled in the temple, where Joseph explained that he and the others “had spent the night previous waiting upon the Lord in his temple” and that “it was expedient for us to prepare bread and wine sufficient to making our hearts glad, as we should not probably leave this house until morning.” The order of procedure consisted of preaching, exhortation, and blessings, which continued “until 5 o clock in the morning.” Miraculous manifestations of God’s presence occurred—some spoke in tongues, “the Savior made his appearance to some, while angels ministered to others.” Smith’s journal entry for the day concluded: [I]t was a penticost and enduement indeed, long to be remembered for the sound shall go forth from this place unto all the world, and the occurrences of this shall shall be handed down upon the pages of sacred history to all generations, as the day of Pentecost, so shall this day be numbered and celebrated as a year of Jubilee and time of rejoicing to the saints of the most high God.113 With the promised endowment elders could now do as Joseph Smith had prayed in the dedicatory prayer. “We ask thee, Holy Father, that thy servants may go forth from this house armed with thy power, and that thy name may be upon them, and thy glory be round about them, and thine angels have charge over them; And from this place they may bear exceedingly great and glorious tidings, in truth, unto the ends of the earth.”114 Methodist ministers sought similar blessings. As mentioned near the beginning of this chapter, Charles Giles joyfully declared that many preachers were “endowed with supernatural power, by which they spoke with tongues and performed miracles. ... The Spirit of God attended their ministry, and signs and wonders followed them.”115 In early Latter-day Saint temple worship, as in Joseph Smith’s conversion narrative, the Mormon prophet incorporated standard forms and services from the surrounding culture, yet imbued them with additional or new meanings. As discussed in chapter two, early Mormon converts from Methodism understood their prior religion to possess important elements of true religion. As such, they likely saw Mormon adoption and adaptation of the itinerancy, small worship meetings, and the shout tradition—all aimed at invoking God’s presence on a community of believers—as an extension of the truth they had received while Methodists. This idea is perhaps best expressed in the conversation Peter Cartwright remembered having with Joseph Smith. In Cartwright’s reconstruction of the exchange, Smith told him that “We Latter-day Saints are Methodists, as far as they have gone, only we have advanced further” and that “among all the Churches in the world the Methodist was the nearest right, and that, as far as they went, they were right.” What the Methodists lacked, according to Cartwright’s recollection of Smith’s counsel, was “the gift of tongues, of prophecy, and of miracles.”116 Based on the utilization by Smith and the Mormons of various forms of Methodist worship and organization aimed in large part at accessing those gifts, perhaps Smith’s statement is more revealing than it first appears. Methodism presents a number of striking parallels to early Mormon religious experience. When the Latter-day Saints left Ohio and Missouri for their new home in Nauvoo, Illinois, a shift in theology and worship accompanied the shift in geographical center of the church. It was there in Nauvoo that polygamy was introduced, Joseph Smith’s theology expanded, and most important to this analysis, temple rituals took a decidedly Masonic turn. Nevertheless, some key elements from the Kirtland era persisted, including the Hosanna Shout. Other residual elements of Methodism’s influence on Mormonism similarly persisted well after the first decade of Mormonism’s existence. Indeed, the mass conversions of Methodists to Mormonism in the British Isles beginning in the 1840s and continuing throughout the nineteenth century meant that Mormonism would continue to be shaped by the experience and expectations of those converts. One British convert, Fanny Stenhouse thus recalled “Mormonism in England” in the 1840s, noting that “The Mormons were then simply an earnest religious people, in many respects like the Methodists, especially in their missionary zeal and fervour of spirit.”117 In August 1877, Wilford Woodruff recorded a vision in which the signers of the American Declaration of Independence and “fifty other eminent men” appeared to him requesting that they be vicariously baptized into the Mormon church. Among the “other eminent men” was John Wesley. In addition to being baptized in their behalf, Woodruff also vicariously ordained three men to the Mormon high priesthood—Christopher Columbus, Benjamin Franklin, and John Wesley.118 Stephen Fleming recently proposed that “the special distinction” granted to these three men “suggests that they played a particularly important role” in “the Restoration of the gospel.”119 It certainly suggests that this was true in Wilford Woodruff’s mind. But Methodism’s influence persists even in modern Mormonism. Latter-day Saints to this day participate in the “Hosanna Shout” at the close of the dedicatory prayer for each newly-built temple, the hymns of Charles Wesley are still regularly sung in Sunday worship services, and Mormons still organize their ecclesiastical year around general and local conferences. Few Latter-day Saints, though, are aware of the Methodist connection and precedent for these various practices. Instead, these influences, removed in the minds of modern Mormons from the Methodist community of discourse from which they developed, have become something else entirely.