| 579 The Utah semiannual conference was in session in Salt Lake City from April 6 to 8. The mission was divided into the following subdistricts: Malad, Weber, Salt Lake, and South, with Elders Nicholas, Larsen, J. Foreman, and William Worwood to preside in the order named. Thomas Liez was appointed recorder.
The Pacific slope semiannual conference was in session from April 6 to 9. The following appointments were made: Thomas Dungan, to preside over the Pacific slope mission until the arrival of those appointed by General Conference; George W. Sparks was sustained as president of San Bernardino district; E. Penrod, as president of Nevada district; T. J. Andrews, as book agent; Peter Canavan, as recorder. The following elders were appointed to do missionary work, all in California: Glaud Rodger, J. W. Gillen, Hervey Green, J. C. Clapp, Hiram Falk, George Adams, D. S. Mills, D. S. Crowley, Jacob Adamson, and Cornelius Bagnall.
About this time, as before and since, there was some speculation regarding the significance of the peculiar names found in the revelations. In consequence of this, President Smith published an explanation from his own pen, in the Herald for April 15, 1870. 2
2 In the Book of Covenants there are several revelations which are given to the church as examples for their guidance. These revelations are professedly the commandments given to Enoch, and the names which are there given, with few exceptions, are evidently the names of men living in Enoch's time. Orson Pratt, and perhaps some others in teaching these revelations, in order more fully to illustrate the principles, used the names as types, which was perhaps permissible. A difficulty has grown out of it, which has resulted in embarrassing the brethren in certain localities when defending the faith. This difficulty is, that the rumor that there was a secret organization in the church to which these names answered, has color from the interpretations. What we wish to state, then, is this, that when the order which is contemplated in those revelations is fully established, the persons holding the various positions therein provided will fill the types given in those names; not that they shall of necessity be called by those names, but simply to correspond with the example.
There are no secret organizations in the church known to us. If members of the church belong to any, they are the various secret orders existing in the world, not in the church. The different quorums of the church, when in a state of complete organization, hold business sessions; but are organizations like unto corporative bodies of towns, cities, and church officers of other religious sects. It is therefore quite time that the notion of secret church societies
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