409 corner-stone of the Beaver Island dynasty, under James J. Strang; the meeting of the April conference on the historic ground at Independence, Missouri; the assembling of the fall session at Lamoni; and the prospective meeting at Kirtland, Ohio, have all had their effect for good, effectually establishing the fact that overruling providences have stayed the earlier happening of these events, that they might transpire with effective weight to aid in the grand progression.
We take leave of the year 1882 with gladness. No year has passed, of late, so quickly in seeming; nor been so fraught with present recollections touching our good work. The faces so persistently set Zionward have glowed in the sunlight shining from the distant glory; and the hearts weighed down by sadness and sorrow through their long waiting, have been made to rejoice in the near approach of full deliverance.
The church now stands on higher planes for development and hope of success than ever before. We begin the new year with stronger determinations than ever to prosecute the work at our hands to do, with unabated zeal, and so far as we can with undiminished force. . . .
The Herald has reached the completion of its twenty-ninth volume, and begins the thirtieth with fair prospects, so far as its journalistic existence is concerned; and in the form of a weekly proposes still to carry out the design of its institution, the dissemination of the principles of the gospel, as revealed to Joseph Smith and others, and taught by them prior to and until 1844. . . .
The high standard of truth and morality which it has been the endeavor of the church to rear and uphold, it will be the constant aim to still maintain.
In the above it will be observed that the Herald is mentioned as a "weekly." It had before been published as a semimonthly, and this was its first venture as a weekly. It has been so published ever since.
About this time appeared a pamphlet written by a Mr. R. Patterson, of Pittsburg [Pittsburgh], Pennsylvania, in defense of the Spalding story theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon. This pamphlet was reviewed by President Joseph Smith. The review was first published in the Saints' Herald and subsequently in pamphlet form by the Board of Publication. Mr. Patterson's treatise attracted some notice at first, but has since been relegated to comparative obscurity.
On January 11 Senator Edmunds introduced another bill in the United States Senate intended "to provide further means for the suppression of the crimes of bigamy, polygamy, and unlawful cohabitation in the Territories of the United States."
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