Chapter 1: History and Prehistory

§1.6 King Follett Sermon Sources,

Editions, Abbreviations, and a Timeline.
Since I will refer to many of the manuscripts and imprints of
Follett below, I will summarize their bibliographic data here and give
a graph-ical representation of many of these texts in a stemma. I
then give a brief timeline for the sermon. These tools will be useful
in situating the content of later chapters.

An Abbreviated Enumerative Bibliography:

Manuscripts and Selected Editions of the Sermon Text.
The context for many of the entries below will be described in
suc-ceeding chapters. See the timeline below for some additional
imprints.

1. King Follett Sermon, JS’s funeral (memorial) address

for King Follett, delivered on the afternoon of Sunday
April 7, 1844, at a Special Conference of the church.
2. TB. Thomas Bullock’s conference minutes of the ser-
mon. TB was docketed by Bullock probably near or
at the time of the report. Cataloged as CR 100 318,
Box 1, fd. 19, CHL. Custody of the minutes seems to
have been shared by Bullock and Willard Richards
initially and the minutes then formed part of the
corpus of church records, packed and transported to
Utah, beginning in 1846 (see remarks at entry 4).

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3. WC. William Clayton’s conference minutes of the

sermon. CR 100 318, Box 1, fd. 19, CHL. On custody,
see TB.
4. WR. Willard Richards’ report of the sermon as
entered in the JS diary for April 7, 1844. MS 155, Box
1, fd. 8, CHL. The JS diaries for the period of Follett
were in Richards’s possession. They likely remained
in his custody until they were packed in boxes of
materials that were then transported from Nauvoo
in 1846. The JS diaries were filed at the new church
historian’s office in Salt Lake City, November 6, 1855.
The diary entry for WR may have been penned at the
time of the sermon’s delivery, April 7, 1844. Richards
had reserved six pages of the diary for his report prior
to the sermon. He did not intend a detailed audit.137
5. WW. Wilford Woodruff’s second order audit,
expanded from his notes of Follett. That expansion
appears in his journal under the date of April 7, 1844,
and which is presently filed as MS 1352, Box 2, fd. 1,
CHL. Woodruff’s journal largely remained in his cus-
tody until his death in 1898. The clerks of the church
historian’s office in Utah borrowed the early diaries
on occasion to copy historical material from them, in
particular Woodruff’s audits of JS’s sermons, includ-
ing WW.
6. SR. Samuel W. Richards’s notes of the sermon.
Samuel W. Richards notebook. Box 1, fd. 1, MS 1841,
CHL. Richards copied SR from another source, his
own notes possibly, thus it is at least a second order

137. For more information on the JS diaries, see JSP, J1: xliii–lvii; JSP, J2: xiii-
xxxii.

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manuscript. Richards’s notebooks were donated

to CHL in 1959 by a descendant. Prior to that time
the notebooks were evidently in the custody of the
Richards family.
7. GL1–2. Two higher order content audits of the ser-
mon by George Laub. Laub made two manuscripts,
one submitted to church historians ca. 1855, one
kept in his possession and later donated to church
archives. Both content audits are now preserved in
CHL as portions of MS 9628 (GL1, here), “George
Laub reminiscences and journal. 1845” and MS 1983
(GL2 here), “George Laub reminiscences and jour-
nal, 1845–1846.” The early provenance of the note-
books is not clear, though both claim composition
in 1845. MS 9628 appears to be the earlier of the two
compositions with respect to Follett. GL2 is likely
an edition of GL1. MS 9628 was probably composed
of various individual manuscripts supplemented by
memory. MS 9628 was donated to CHL by Laub
descendants in 1988.
8. TS. Thomas Bullock’s April 1844 conflation of his
own conference minutes (TB) with those of William
Clayton (WC) for the sermon. TS appeared in the
Times and Seasons (Nauvoo, Ill.) 5, no. 15 (August
15, 1844): 612–17, hence the designation (actually the
August issue did not appear until September—the
print shop personnel were all ill with Nauvoo’s sum-
mer complaint). Editor of record, John Taylor.
9. MS1. A mildly edited reprint of TS appearing in the
church’s Liverpool, England, publication, Latter-­day
Saints’ Millennial Star 5, no. 6 (November 1844):
87–93. Editor of record, Thomas Ward.

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10. VOT. W. W. Phelps/John Taylor redaction of TS for

the memorial pamphlet The Voice of Truth, distrib-
uted in 1845, Nauvoo, Illinois.
11. ZW. A reprint of VOT in the Sydney, Australia,
Mormon serial, Zion’s Watchman 1, no. 32–33 (April
12, 1855): 249–56. Edited by Augustus Farnham.
12. GM0. Jonathan Grimshaw’s fusion of VOT with
WW and WR, carried out during the first weeks of
October 1855. MS 155, Box 4, fd. 6, CHL
13. GM1. Descended from GM0 as edited by George A.
Smith, Brigham Young, Thomas Bullock, Grimshaw,
and perhaps by others, November 1855. MS 155, Box
4, fd. 6, CHL.
14. RC. The version of GM1 entered into the Manuscript
History of the Church (hereafter, ms history) by
Robert Lang Campbell, April 1856. CR 100 102,
6:1968–79, CHL.
15. DN. The first imprint of RC appeared in The Deseret
News (Salt Lake City, Utah) 7, no. 18 (July 8, 1857): 1,
edited by the church historian’s staff.
16. MS2. Reprint of DN in Latter-­day Saints’ Millennial
Star (Liverpool, England) 23, no. 17 (April 20, 1861):
245–48; 23, no. 18 (April 27, 1861): 262–64; 23, no. 19
(May 4, 1861): 279–80. Editor of record George Q.
Cannon.
17. CON. Reprint of MS2 in the church’s magazine for
male youth, The Contributor (Salt Lake City) 5, no. 7
(April 1883): 252–61, Editor of record, Junius F. Wells.
18. R1. The Improvement Era (Salt Lake City), the
church’s magazine for men and male youth of the
period, printed a B. H. Roberts edited version of
MS2 in its January 1909 issue (12, no. 3): 169–91.

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Roberts took some liberties with the text, omitting

material and changing a few words, which he may
have regarded as archaic or incorrect. He also added
footnotes, many of which survived in later printings
as well as other texts. R1 began a new text tradition
of Follett.
19. R2. Liahona The Elders’ Journal (Independence,
Missouri) 9, no. 24 (December 5, 1911): 369–79,
382–83. An edition of R1. Editor of record, Joseph
A. McRae. The Journal planned to distribute 12,000
copies of the issue because of a large demand from
subscribers.138
20. R3. An edition of the R1 printed by Magazine
Printing Co. (Salt Lake City), 1913(?), edited by B. H.
Roberts (10,000 copies, reprinted 1926, and subse-
quently (see the timeline below).
21. R4. A version of R1 which appeared in Teachings
of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret
News Press, 1938), 342–62, edited by Joseph Fielding
Smith.
22. R5. An edition of R1 appeared in the second revised
edition of History of the Church (Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book Co., 1952), 6:302–17. Titular editor,
Joseph Fielding Smith.
23. R6. An edition of R5 appeared in the Ensign (Salt
Lake City), a then-new monthly magazine of The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints, April and
May, 1971 issues. Editor of record, Doyle L. Green.

138. The First Presidency intervened to prevent distribution but were too late to
stop the distribution of several thousand copies. In the following issue, December 12,
1911, the Liahona printed a sermon by Charles Penrose that set out a counter-­theology.

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Timeline
■ 1844
April 7. The Follett sermon is delivered at 3:15 pm west of the temple
construction site, Nauvoo, Illinois.
April 7. TB, WC, WR composed during the address.
April 10. Thomas Bullock receives the assignment to ready minutes of
the conference for publication in the Nauvoo Times and Seasons.
April 23–26. Thomas Bullock composes minutes of the April 5–9
conference, fusing TB and WC for the Follett sermon report.
April 25. Thomas Bullock meets with Times and Seasons editor John
Taylor, possibly to flesh out JS’s Hebrew discussion in the sermon.
June 27. JS is assassinated at Carthage, Illinois.
August 15. TS publishing date in the Times and Seasons, and it was
not printed until September due to illness among the printing staff.
November. TS is reprinted in Liverpool, England, in Latter-­day
Saints’ Millennial Star (this is MS1).

■ 1845
The bulk of the Voice of Truth was printed in 1844, but an edited
version of TS (VOT) is added, creating a revised version of Voice of
Truth in 1845. The booklet’s original purpose had to do with JS’s
campaign for the US presidency.
January. William W. Phelps publishes a hymn, A Voice From the
Prophet: Come to Me. (Speaks of a Mother in heaven).
May. William W. Phelps publishes a story, Paracletes. (Speaks of spirits
born in heaven).
October. Eliza R. Snow publishes a poem, My Father in Heaven.
(Speaks of a Mother in heaven).

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■ 1846
February 3–5. Thomas Bullock and Willard Richards packs church
minutes including TB and WC for the journey west beyond the
United States.

[ 9 years ]

■ 1855
April 12. VOT appears in the church mission periodical Zion’s
Watchman (ZW) in Sydney, Australia (this was the final “church”
printing of TS, but see 1903 and 1974 below).
October 3–10. Jonathan Grimshaw uses VOT together with TB, WC,
WW, and WR to compile GM0.
October–November. George A. Smith and Thomas Bullock and
perhaps others review and redact GM0 creating GM1.
November 18. GM1 is reviewed and revised by Brigham Young with
the assistance of Bullock.

■ 1856
April. Robert Campbell cancels a copy of TS in the ms history and
after the cancelled text, he inserts a copy of GM1, creating RC.
August 9. Brigham Young, Jedediah M. Grant, Wilford Woodruff,
and Leo Hawkins review RC. Hawkins adds a notation to the head of
RC regarding sources used in its creation but makes no mention of its
most significant source, VOT.

■ 1857
July 8. RC is printed in The Deseret News (DN) as part of the
continuing publication series of the ms history under the earlier
Times and Seasons rubric, “History of Joseph Smith.”
Franklin D. Richards publishes a book for mission work, A
Compendium of the Faith and Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ

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of Latter-­day Saints. Richards quotes from the Matthew Davis letter,

“I believe that the soul is eternal, it had no beginning, it can have no
end.” (p. 145) See 1882.

[ 2 years ]

■ 1859
DN is reprinted in Liverpool, England, in George D. Watt’s Journal of
Discourses 6:1–11.

[ 2 years ]

■ 1861
April 20. DN is reprinted in Liverpool, England, as part of the Latter-­
day Saints’ Millennial Star’s run of the “History of Joseph Smith”
from the July 8, 1857, Deseret News instance above.

[ 17 years ]

■ 1878
July 26. MS2 is reprinted in the St. George, Utah, Union newspaper
(page 2) and continued in its successive biweekly issues.

[ 4 years ]

■ 1882
Excerpts of TS appear in Franklin D. Richards and James A. Little, A
Compendium of the Doctrines of the Gospel. It is somewhat remarkable
that TS is used and not MS2, since the former was not the approved
construction (RC) and TS had a small circulation in its day. More
remarkable still is the selection of one of the most controversial
portions, the pericope on the resurrection of children.

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■ 1883
April. An edition of MS2 is printed in The Contributor magazine (pp.
252–61). This is CON in the bibliography above.

[ 5 years ]

■ 1888
Short excerpts of MS2 are reprinted in Andrew Jenson’s Historical
Record. Curiously, Jenson’s longest selection is from the section on
the unpardonable sin and Hell.

[ 7 years ]

■ 1895
Nels Lars Nelson uses MS2 as a basis for his deduction that man’s
core being is not contingent. The Contributor 16, no. 12 (October
1895): 737–38. 139

[ 8 years ]

■ 1903
February. John R. Winder, a counselor to church president Joseph F.
Smith, quotes from Follett in the service of proxy work for the dead.
Young Woman’s Journal 14, no. 2 (February 1903): 52.
August. An edition of VOT is printed by the Presbyterian Teachers
Association of Utah. The front page for the little pamphlet (16.5 × 9.5cm)

139. The language echoes that of an 1895 address by B. H. Roberts. Roberts gave

an address on January 27, 1895, in which he said, “The commandment which God
gave to man in the Garden of Eden, ‘Multiply and replenish the earth,’ was just as
pure a commandment as ‘Repent and be baptized.’ It is upon this principle of pro-
creation that intelligences are begotten as spirits in the pre-existent worlds.” B. H.
Roberts, “What is Man?” Deseret Weekly 50 (March 16, 1895): 385–88 (reprinted in
Millennial Star 57 [July 4, 1895]: 417–21; 433–37).

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stated: “Joseph Smith’s Last Sermon, As issued by Elder John Taylor,

Nauvoo, Ill., June, 1844: Now republished according to resolution of the
Presbyterian Teachers’ Association, August, 1903; Salt Lake City, Utah.”

■ 1904
April. B. H. Roberts outlines some of his forthcoming YMMIA manual
in an April 3 general conference address.

■ 1905
B. H. Roberts’s YMMIA Manual is released. This manual of instruction
for the church’s young men organization was a part of Roberts’s three
volume work, New Witnesses for God (volume one appeared in 1903).

■ 1906
A private reprint of MS2 by C. C. Anderson. The volume contained
other material in support of plural marriage and thus is one of the
initial efforts to go back to the original Mormonism rather than the
shockingly (for some) deflated post-manifesto version.

■ 1907
B. H. Roberts–F. M. Lyman report answering questions from readers
of Roberts’s 1905 manual (see above). The report is published as the lead
article in the January issue of the Improvement Era. See chapter 3 below.

[ 2 years ]

■ 1909
January. MS2 is reprinted by B. H. Roberts in the Improvement Era
with his own annotation. (This is R1.)

[ 2 years ]

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■ 1911
December. R1 is reprinted (R2) in Liahona The Elders’ Journal,
including Roberts’s annotation (12,000 copies). There are many
minor variations from the 1909 imprint. Church leaders had by then
determined Follett was a misleading text and wished to extract the
sermon from current and future LDS literature and sought to halt
distribution. See chapter 3.

■ 1912
January 23. Liahona The Elders’ Journal prints a notice that no more
orders for the Follett issue would be filled: “The edition of the King
Follett Discourse is exhausted. No more orders can be filled after this
date.”
RC (actually, MS2) is excluded from History of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints, Period I. See chapter 3. The First
Presidency essentially anathomizes the sermon, and it does not appear
in the History until a revised volume is issued in 1952.
The date is uncertain, but the church’s New Zealand Mission
publishes what appears to be a version of R2.

■ 1913 (1912?)
Summer. Historian T. Edgar Lyon suggests that R1 was reprinted by
Magazine Printing and Publishing (Salt Lake City) at the insistence of
B. H. Roberts.

[ 6 years ]

■ 1919
June. LeRoi C. Snow, “Devotion to a Divine Inspiration.” Snow’s
article is a tribute to his father’s (former church president Lorenzo
Snow) contributions. Snow notes the several editions of the Follett
sermon and some of their problems. (See chapter 3.)

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[ 7 years ]

■ 1926
Summer. Magazine Printing reprints R1. They reprint several more
times.

[ 12 years ]

■ 1938
Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr., LDS Church Historian, reprints R1 in
his Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. This brings RC back into
the official favor from which it had fallen in the second decade of the
twentieth century. The book is used as a church instruction manual.

[ 5 years ]

■ 1943
A version of Follett is published in German at Basel, Switzerland,
at the height of World War II. Die King Follett-Ansprache:
Personenlichkeit und wesen gottes: unsterblichkeit der Intelligenz
Menschen (The King Follett Address: Personality and Essence of God:
Immortality of the Intelligence of Man). Translation of R4 by the
Swiss Mission of the LDS Church. Roberts’s notes were translated by
Max Zimmer (1889–1957?).140

[ 9 years ]

140. Zimmer was born in Colmar, Alsace-Lorraine, and was probably living

in Basel (about 50 miles south of Colmar) by 1904. The text includes biographi-
cal information on Richards, Woodruff, Bullock, and Clayton together with other
annotations taken from R2.

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■ 1952
History of the Church vol. 6 is issued in a revised edition. Under the
direction of Joseph Fielding Smith an edition of R1 is included with
streamlined notes. Smith felt the sermon was too advanced for rank-
and-file Saints and the public, though he now accepted it himself.

[ 4 years ]

■ 1956
Alma P. Burton’s Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith contained
short excerpts of the sermon. See 1977.

[ 9 years ]

■ 1965
James R. Clark included R5 in his multi-volume compilation,
Messages of the First Presidency 1:209–25.

[ 6 years ]

■ 1971
April–May. The LDS Church’s Ensign magazine printed R4, but did
not include the notes of B. H. Roberts—aside from short quotations
this appears to be the most recent “official” printing of RC.

[ 3 years ]

■ 1974
Anthologies became a popular form for Mormon publishing houses
at this period. One series contains an edition of TS. Richard H.
Cracroft, ed., Believing People: Literature of the Latter-­day Saints,
167–72 (and later reprints). The editor mistakenly ascribes the text to
four sources, confusing TS with RC.

[ 3 years ]

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The King Follett Sermon

■ 1977
Alma P. Burton’s Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 2nd ed.
reprinted R5 as “Appendix A.”

■ 1978
The journal Brigham Young University Studies vol. 18, no. 2 (Winter
1978): 179–226, publishes several articles on the Follett sermon,
including a new edition of the text.

[ 2 years ]

■ 1980
Editions of TB, WC, GL2, WW, SR, WR are published in Andrew F.
Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., The Words of Joseph Smith.

[ 9 years ]

■ 1989
An edition of RC is published in Robert L. Millett, ed., Joseph Smith:
Selected Sermons and Writings. Millett supplied notes reflecting
some modern interpretations of Follett (via Elder Bruce McConkie’s
writings).

[ 5 years ]

■ 1994
June 26. Gordon B. Hinckley, a counselor in the First Presidency of
the Church, refers to Follett as a “doctrinal document.”141

[ 5 years ]

141. Gordon B. Hinckley, “Nauvoo’s Holy Temple,” 59–62.

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■ 1999
An edition of Follett appeared in the Michael Warner produced
anthology, American Sermons: The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King
Jr. (New York: Putnam, 1999). The 1989 Millett text above was
advertised as the basis for this edition of Follett.

[ 14 years ]

■ 2013
The Follett sermon appears as background in an apologetic text
published by the LDS Church as one of a series of essays called Gospel
Topics. Titled “Becoming Like God,” the intent was to situate the
deification ideas of Follett and other JS texts within a biblical view of
the world.142

142. See [Link]

becoming-like-god. For an account of the genesis of the Gospel Topics essays, see
Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst, Introduction: Why the Gospel
Topics Essays,” in The LDS Gospel Topics Series: A Scholarly Engagement.
143. See G. Thomas Tanselle, “Editing without a Copy-Text,” 1–6.

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