Christ's visit to Lorenzo Snow in 1898

[Duncan]

I think we are all familiar with Christ's visit to Pres. Lorenzo Snow in 1898 when Pres. Wilford Woodruff had passed away. I noticed that the account was written by his son Le Roi in 1933 and was printed in the Improvement Era. I was wondering though if there are earlier accounts of this visit? In the article he quotes Pres. Snow's granddaughter, Allie Young Pond of what she heard him tell her and he also quotes from Pres. Grant who heard him relate the experience, which would make sense as he was an Apostle in 1898. It all seems to come from the son, Le Roi, but does anybody know of any independant evidence of this experience?

[Jeanne]

You would think so Duncan.  Somewhere, there has to be an account ...I can't imagine waiting for almost  40 years for a first account.  Just my ,02.

[Tacenda]

17 minutes ago, Duncan said:

I think we are all familiar with Christ's visit to Pres. Lorenzo Snow in 1898 when Pres. Wilford Woodruff had passed away. I noticed that the account was written by his son Le Roi in 1933 and was printed in the Improvement Era. I was wondering though if there are earlier accounts of this visit? In the article he quotes Pres. Snow's granddaughter, Allie Young Pond of what she heard him tell her and he also quotes from Pres. Grant who heard him relate the experience, which would make sense as he was an Apostle in 1898. It all seems to come from the son, Le Roi, but does anybody know of any independant evidence of this experience?

Google is your friend sometimes, but don't know if these will work Duncan, one is an interesting looking book. 

https://familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/2072114

http://en.fairmormon.org/Criticism_of_Mormonism/Books/Passing_the_Heavenly_Gift/Brigham_Young_and_apostles_not_witnesses_of_Christ

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jmormhist.42.3.0155?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

[Duncan]

Just now, Tacenda said:

Google is your friend sometimes, but don't know if these will work Duncan, one is an interesting looking book. 

https://familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/2072114

http://en.fairmormon.org/Criticism_of_Mormonism/Books/Passing_the_Heavenly_Gift/Brigham_Young_and_apostles_not_witnesses_of_Christ

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jmormhist.42.3.0155?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

ohh, hot dang! anybody know John P. Hatch's email and if he likes Canadian fudge brownies?

Edited November 12, 2016 by Duncan

[Calm]

You might try emailing Sunstone or Signature, I don't know what his current relationship is with them, but he used to be connected with both.  Last I heard he was an editor at the latter, but that was several years ago.  

Edited November 12, 2016 by Calm

[Jeanne]

18 minutes ago, Duncan said:

ohh, hot dang! anybody know John P. Hatch's email and if he likes Canadian fudge brownies?

Well who cares about that?  I would love some Canadian fudge brownies!!

[VideoGameJunkie]

Visits of Christ to apostles and prophets really helps my testimony grow. I believe Lorenzo Snow if it's true because he would be in the position to witness Christ. Actually I believe we can all be eligible to witness Christ under the right circumstances.

[theplains]

1 hour ago, Duncan said:

I think we are all familiar with Christ's visit to Pres. Lorenzo Snow in 1898 when Pres. Wilford Woodruff had passed away. I noticed that the account was written by his son Le Roi in 1933 and was printed in the Improvement Era. I was wondering though if there are earlier accounts of this visit? In the article he quotes Pres. Snow's granddaughter, Allie Young Pond of what she heard him tell her and he also quotes from Pres. Grant who heard him relate the experience, which would make sense as he was an Apostle in 1898. It all seems to come from the son, Le Roi, but does anybody know of any independant evidence of this experience?

I don't know of independent evidence but it is described in a church manual, on page 27. It
doesn't go into much detail however. There might be something in the GC, but I haven't
checked.

"In answer to his prayer, he was visited by the Lord Himself. President Snow later testified 
that he “actually saw the Savior . . . in the Temple, and talked with Him face to face.” The 
Lord told him to proceed immediately with the reorganization of the First Presidency, not to 
wait as had been done when previous Presidents of the Church had died."

Regards,
Jim

[mapman]

3 hours ago, Duncan said:

ohh, hot dang! anybody know John P. Hatch's email and if he likes Canadian fudge brownies?

I read through Hatch's article. I think these two paragraphs sum up his findings pretty well:

"We are left with the conclusion that every account we have for Lorenzo Snow’s experience in the Salt Lake Temple comes from one person, LeRoi C. Snow, over three decades later, perhaps relying on a now-lost narrative by his niece, Allie Young Pond." (172)

"What happened to Snow in the Salt Lake Temple on September 2, 1898? All the contemporary evidence points to him offering up a humble prayer and then receiving an answer. There is no mention of a visitation. Even if Snow had shared a vision but sworn listeners to secrecy, one might expect a sliver of detail to slip through. But the diaries and the records are silent. Absence of proof is certainly not proof of absence, but it is difficult not to conclude that Lorenzo Snow did not share with the apostles a story of a visitation." (173)

[Calm]

Otoh, if I am reading him correctly elsewhere, Hatch has not been a believer for sometime.  Not sure why he would be open to the conclusion that Christ actually appeared to Lorenzo Snow.

[mapman]

Yeah, I'm not sure if there are any believing historians that have tried to argue that this visitation happened, but it would be interesting to see what evidence they would have. As far as I'm concerned, it was sufficient that Lorenzo Snow received an answer to his prayer, a visitation wasn't necessary. I think that another problem is that it is usually kind of ambiguous if accounts members usually assume were visitations were actually visions. Like most think Christ was literally in New York in the First Vision, but the way that JS actually describes it makes it ambiguous. Maybe Lorenzo Snow had an experience where he saw Jesus while he was in the temple and the story morphed over time to Jesus physically being in the temple by the staircase. It's probably impossible to know for sure what happened.

[Glenn101]

1 hour ago, mapman said:

Yeah, I'm not sure if there are any believing historians that have tried to argue that this visitation happened, but it would be interesting to see what evidence they would have. As far as I'm concerned, it was sufficient that Lorenzo Snow received an answer to his prayer, a visitation wasn't necessary. I think that another problem is that it is usually kind of ambiguous if accounts members usually assume were visitations were actually visions. Like most think Christ was literally in New York in the First Vision, but the way that JS actually describes it makes it ambiguous. Maybe Lorenzo Snow had an experience where he saw Jesus while he was in the temple and the story morphed over time to Jesus physically being in the temple by the staircase. It's probably impossible to know for sure what happened.

It is hard to argue for or against something with so little information.

Glenn

[Nevo]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Otoh, if I am reading him correctly elsewhere, Hatch has not been a believer for sometime.  Not sure why he would be open to the conclusion that Christ actually appeared to Lorenzo Snow.

I found Hatch's article to be thorough and even-handed. Here are a few paragraphs that I think exemplify his careful approach:
 

Quote

Did Heber J. Grant believe that Jesus visited Lorenzo Snow? In 1926, seven years after this MIA conference, Grant responded to a letter from a church member, Mrs. Claud Peery. She inquired of Grant which church leaders experienced visions of Jesus. His reply was succinct and unambiguous: “I know of no instance where the Lord has appeared to an individual since His appearance to the Prophet Joseph Smith.” Grant’s response would seem to slam the door on a visitation by Jesus to Lorenzo Snow, but it is not without its own problems. Grant’s responsibilities as leader of the Church took him to countless meetings; he likely would not have been thinking about a specific MIA conference when penning a brief letter seven years later. Unfortunately, Mrs. Peery’s original letter is unavailable, making the complete context of Grant’s response difficult to gauge. Grant, if he did bear testimony of Snow’s visitation as LeRoi says, may have understood that experience to have been different than the kind Mrs. Peery was inquiring about. Or, he simply may not have felt comfortable sharing an experience that was not yet publicly known. (171)

 

Quote

The few surviving details are a clash of contradictions. Noah Pond insists that Lorenzo Snow told the apostles of the vision, but not a single apostle recorded it. LeRoi Snow states that he shared the visitation in a meeting in 1919, but no evidence exists to confirm this. Allie Pond’s account, if it was ever recorded, is gone. None of the men LeRoi Snow cites—Anthon H. Lund, Heber J. Grant, and Arthur Winter—ever recorded a confirmation. Individually, these factors can be explained. But rising above the trees to take a look at the forest, the evidence seems to point strongly, though not conclusively, to the absence of a divine visitation.

Yet the story LeRoi Snow shared with the world in 1933 presumably came from somewhere. It stretches credulity to suggest that LeRoi deliberately invented the tale out of whole cloth. When the story was published, Allie Pond was still living, making it even less likely LeRoi Snow would involve her name in a story he had concocted. Noah Pond insisted that Allie shared the story often and that she had written it down immediately after it had happened. If anyone had heard her share the story and discussed it with her, it would likely have been her husband of forty-seven years. Allie clearly believed her grandfather told her he had seen Jesus in the Salt Lake Temple. (173–174)

 

Quote

Perhaps Lorenzo Snow saw—or believed he saw—Jesus Christ in the Salt Lake Temple. He may have felt unworthy to share the event with his peers. Perhaps he even wondered if they would believe him. Would they, given the lack of precedent in reorganizing the First Presidency immediately, see it as a power grab? And so Lorenzo Snow unburdened himself on someone he loved and trusted: his granddaughter, who wrote an account and treasured it until she shared it with her uncle, LeRoi Snow.

But, more likely, Allie’s account is inaccurate. It is detailed and unmistakable, but that is the double-edged sword of memory: it provides rich, lavish minutia regardless of whether or not it is factually accurate. If Allie did not record the event right away, or she did but lost the original, and had to rerecord it later, even within a few months or a few years of the event, it is likely she would unintentionally embellish, add details, and ultimately create an event that may not have happened. If she were interviewed by LeRoi decades later, he would have unintentionally influenced her by making suggestions or asking questions. This is neither dishonest nor delusional; it is fundamentally human. It is not unreasonable, or as far-fetched as it might first appear, to suggest Allie Young Pond, perhaps prompted by her Uncle LeRoi, developed memories of her conversation with her grandfather Lorenzo Snow that did not happen. (175)

 

Edited November 13, 2016 by Nevo

[Duncan]

Just now, Nevo said:

I found Hatch's article to be thorough and even-handed. Here are a few paragraphs that I think exemplify his careful approach:
 

 

 

 

Tantalizing!

[Five Solas]

Perhaps I'm the only one, but I remember watching, "Windows of Heaven" when I was a kid.  Several times, in fact.  And I remember being quite struck by its message & seeming power.  But things aren't always what they appear, are they?  Shades of grey, like the Salt Lake valley in wintertime...

--Erik

[Duncan]

I came across this blog, not sure who runs it but it mentions some details about Pres. Lorenzo Snow's visit

Pres[ident]. Snow then arose and said: There was no use in his making excuses as to inability, etc., to assume the vast responsibilities involved in the position to which he had been elected. He felt that it was for him to do the very best he could and depend upon the Lord. He knew the action taken by the Council was according to the mind and will of the Lord, who had shown and revealed to him several days ago that the First Presidency should be organized before the next conference. He had been feeling a little gloomy, and perhaps a little discouraged at the prospect, and the vast responsibility that would naturally fall upon him as President of the Twelve Apostles, and with this feeling he went before the Lord, offered up the signs of the Holy Priesthood and called upon Him to let light come to his mind. His prayer was answered, the Lord manifesting unto him clearly what he should do; also in regard to the counselors he should select when he became President of the Church, "And[,]" said he, "In accordance with the light given me, I now present to you the name of Geo[rge]. Q. Cannon as my first counselor, and of Joseph F. Smith as my second counselor". 

it comes from this blog http://lds-church-history.blogspot.ca/2013/09/lorenzo-snow-sep-13-1898-tuesday.html

I think it comes from Pres. Snow's diary. But does the article mention this entry? 

and Brigham Young Jr. has this, same blog

http://lds-church-history.blogspot.ca/2013/09/lorenzo-snow-sep-13-1898.html

- Sep 13, 1898; Tuesday 
All of our thoughts seemed directed to organizing First Presidency. Several Brethren spoke & all felt alike. By unanimous vote we sustained Lorenzo Snow as President. He said I knew this would come and the Lord has revealed to me who my councillors [sic] were, George Q. Cannon & Jos[eph]. F. Smith. I did thank God in my heart and so all seemed to feel. Pres[ident]. S[now]. Trustee in Trust--Franklin D. Richards President of the Twelve. 

Edited November 14, 2016 by Duncan

[Guest]

On November 12, 2016 at 4:23 PM, Duncan said:

I think we are all familiar with Christ's visit to Pres. Lorenzo Snow in 1898 when Pres. Wilford Woodruff had passed away. I noticed that the account was written by his son Le Roi in 1933 and was printed in the Improvement Era. I was wondering though if there are earlier accounts of this visit? In the article he quotes Pres. Snow's granddaughter, Allie Young Pond of what she heard him tell her and he also quotes from Pres. Grant who heard him relate the experience, which would make sense as he was an Apostle in 1898. It all seems to come from the son, Le Roi, but does anybody know of any independant evidence of this experience?

Yes, noted in D&C in section 101 or 110, (hope I got that right) ...anyway it was the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, also in the Tesimony of the First Vision. If you like I can tell of a few "vision", not by sight, but real just the same I experienced in the Atlanta, Temple. 

Edited November 16, 2016 by Bill "Papa" Lee

[Duncan]

Just now, Bill "Papa" Lee said:

Yes, noted in D&C in section 101 or 110, (hope I got that right) ...anyway it was the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, also in the Tesimony of the First Vision. If you like I can tell of a few "vision", not by sight, but real just the same I experienced in the Atlanta. 

ATLANTA?! We stole your hockey team! what happened in Atlanta?

[Guest]

55 minutes ago, Duncan said:

ATLANTA?! We stole your hockey team! what happened in Atlanta?

Not enough fans, Atlanta has always been filled with "Fairweather" fans. 

[theplains]

23 hours ago, Bill "Papa" Lee said:

If you like I can tell of a few "vision", not by sight, but real just the same I experienced in the Atlanta, Temple. 

Did you have a vision but you didn't really see the people or person in that vision with your
eyes?  Or would your vision be consider a dream or an imagination?

Thanks,
Jim

[Five Solas]

Really, I was the only one who sat through "Windows of Heaven" as a kid?  It's the story behind this whole thread.  BYU Motion Picture Studio.  Staring Francis L. Urry as Lorenzo Snow.  Even has its own Wikipedia page.  Can I not get an amen for this reference?  Maybe even a rep point?

;0)

--Erik

[Guest]

18 hours ago, theplains said:

Did you have a vision but you didn't really see the people or person in that vision with your
eyes?  Or would your vision be consider a dream or an imagination?

Thanks,
Jim

If seeing is the only way to have an undeniable experience, the no vision. A very close friend had one such vision of someone other than Christ. If a Spiritual experience must be seen and not felt, then no, as defined I have had no vision. However, as Christ said unto to Thomas, "Blessed are those who have seen and believe, but more blessed are those who have not seen and believe" (Too paraphrase). Not seeing Jesus Chirst in a "vision" is the only qualifier, then I guess my experiences would mean nothing to the unbelieving...but they mean much to me. 

[cinepro]

17 hours ago, Five Solas said:

Really, I was the only one who sat through "Windows of Heaven" as a kid?  It's the story behind this whole thread.  BYU Motion Picture Studio.  Staring Francis L. Urry as Lorenzo Snow.  Even has its own Wikipedia page.  Can I not get an amen for this reference?  Maybe even a rep point?

;0)

--Erik

Sorry, but "Windows of Heaven" is a dramatization of President Snow's visit to St. George and announcement about the change in tithing policy.  It's not about his vision in the Salt Lake Temple and reorganization of the FP.

 

 

 

[Bob Crockett]

On 11/12/2016 at 5:04 PM, mapman said:

Absence of proof is certainly not proof of absence

A false tautology and one that no apologist should employ, particularly using the statistical method.   The absence of any proof of extraterrestrials is a proof that aliens do not exist.  

Edited November 17, 2016 by Bob Crockett

[Duncan]

Just now, cinepro said:

Sorry, but "Windows of Heaven" is a dramatization of President Snow's visit to St. George and announcement about the change in tithing policy.  It's not about his vision in the Salt Lake Temple and reorganization of the FP.

 

 

 

EXACTLEY!!!! I was thinking, are we talking about the same movie here?!