History of Baptism For Health

THEY SHALL BE MADE WHOLE: A HISTORY OF BAPTISM FOR HEALTH
Jonathan A. Stapley and Kristine Wright
SHORTLY AFTER HER HUSBAND returned home from a British mission in 1890, thirty-six-year-old Eleanor Cannon Woodbury Jarvis entered the St. George Temple font. This mother of eight sought a miracle. She remembered: In the spring of 1884 my health failed and I had very poor health for the next 17 or 18 years. I was very near deaths door several times, but by the power of Faith my life was spared. . . . I was taken to the Temple in a wheel chair, was carried into the Font, baptized for my health & walked out & dressed Reports of baptism for the myself, the first time for six months.1* restoration of health are generally overlooked by Mormon historians, yet baptism for health was a widespread Latter-day Saint practice. Such accounts stand in striking contrast to modern Mormon healing ritual, which is limited to Melchizedek Priesthood holders anointing and laying hands on the head of the aff licted. Rebaptism
* JONATHAN A. STAPLEY {[email protected]} has a doctorate from Purdue University and is an executive of a technology firm that is industrializing his graduate research. KRISTINE WRIGHT {kristine.l. [email protected]} has a masters degree in history from the University of Western Ontario. Our thanks to Ardis E. Parshall for her research assistance and to Matthew Bowman and Samuel Brown for their critical insight. 1Eleanor C. W. Jarvis, Diary, 3, typescript, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. See also Eleanor W. Jarvis, Biographical Sketch of George Frederick Jarvis, transcribed by Rose S. Bell, April 21, 1966; photocopy in our possession.
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The Journal of Mormon History
* or baptism for the renewal of covenants2* was normative in nineteenth-century Mormonism and has been treated by several au* * thors.3* Although baptism for health was perhaps more common, * * * Historimodern scholars have given it only tangential treatment.4* cally, the liturgy of Mormon healing is ritually diverse. This study chronicles the development, application, and cessation of baptism for health, an integral part of that history. Like many other aspects of Mormon Restorationism, healing by immersion has biblical precedent. The story of Elisha instructing Namaan to wash in the Jordan seven times and the miraculous New
**
2Baptism for health and baptism for the renewal of covenants are
both technically rebaptism. As the term rebaptism has historically referred to baptism for the renewal of covenants, we do not, in this study, apply it to cases of baptism for health. Early Mormons also called baptism for the renewal of covenants rebaptism (or baptism) for the remission of sins. For a fuller treatment of the sacramental differences between these activities, see the section Rebaptism and Baptism for Health in this paper. 3While the definitive and complete history of rebaptism has yet to be *** written, several authors have engaged the subject: D. Michael Quinn, The Practice of Rebaptism at Nauvoo, BYU Studies 18 (Winter 1978): 22632; Paul H. Peterson, The Mormon Reformation of 18561857: The Rhetoric and the Reality, Journal of Mormon History 15 (1989): 5988; and Stephen C. Taysom, Divine Resistance and Accommodation: Nineteenth-Century Shaker and Mormon Boundary Maintenance Strategies (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 2006), 37677. Fundamentalist historian Ogden Kraut has also produced a history, Re-Baptism (Dugway, Utah: Pioneer Press, n.d.), but its discussion on baptism for health is seriously f lawed. For treatments of rebaptism by twentieth-century LDS Church leaders, see Joseph F. Smith, The Repetition of Sacred Ordinances, Juvenile Instructor 38 (January 1, 1903), 1820; Joseph F. Smith Jr., Editors Table, Improvement Era 20 (August 1917): 91718; James E. Talmage, Articles of Faith: A Series of Lectures on the Principal Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1899), 14448. **** 4Quinn, The Practice of Rebaptism at Nauvoo, 22931; Thomas G. Alexander, Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 18901930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 29091; Gregory A. Prince, Power from On High: The Development of Mormon Priesthood (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), 9092. The most complete treatment to date is Lester E. Bush Jr., Health and Medicine among the Latter-day Saints: Science, Sense and Scripture (New York: Crossroad, 1993), 8284.
JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 71

Testament waters of Bethesda appear to have informed Latter-day Saint practice (2 Kgs. 5:115; John 5:24). Early Christians inhabited a mystical world in which the sacraments of the Church secured and restored life.5+ Even the great pioneer of orthodoxy, Augustine, em+ braced baptism for physical healing.6+ The Church developed formal baptismal rites for health, but this association did not generally per+ However, there are isolated examsist beyond the first millennium.7+ ples of later communities finding healing through baptism; for example, Native Americans in the Great Lakes region viewed baptism by + + Jesuit missionaries as a healing ritual.8+ There is, however, no evidence that post-biblical associations of baptism with healing were known to early Mormons. The formalization of baptism for health as an explicit rite of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints follows a developmental trajectory similar to other healing rituals of the Restoration.9*Healing rituals were generally viewed as anathema by Protestant reformers.
5Amanda Porterfield, Healing in the History of Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), esp. 6062; John Halliburton, Anointing in the Early Church in The Oil of Gladness: Anointing in the Christian Tradition, edited by Martin Dudley and Geoffrey Rowell (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1993), esp. 8283. 6Augustine, Confessions, translated by F. J. Sheed and edited by Mi++ chael P. Foley, 2d ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2006), 1213 [1.11.1718]. 7Scattered instances of formal baptism for health are seen as late as +++ the Carolingian Renaissance. For example, Frederick S. Paxton, Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 18788, shows that the sacramentary which Pope Hadrian I sent to Charlemagne included a ritual baptism for health. Cyrille Vogel, Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction and Sources, translated by William Storey and Niels Rasmussen (Washington, D.C.: Pastoral Press, 1986), 16566 documents other medieval baptismal rites for the sick. ++++ 8Michael P. Gueno, Baptism and Humanity: Native American-Jesuit Relationships in New France (M.A. thesis, Florida State University, 2004), 2949. 9Records of LDS temples in Utah codified the ritual in their records * under the label baptism for health. We have chosen to maintain this appellation throughout this treatment to prevent confusion with other forms
+
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And although Calvinisms inf luence in American religion was waning, the Book of Mormons publication functioned as an iconoclasm against ritual proscription, claiming that the work of miracles and of healing did cease because of the iniquity of the people and that if people lack faith sufficient for miracles, then they also lack faith sufficient for salvation (Mormon 1:13, 9:79; Moro. 7:3738). In mocking the extreme unction of the Roman Catholic Church, Calvin had asked why the Church did not establish a modern pool of Siloam * where the sick could be healed.10* In Joseph Smiths lifetime, the Latter-day Saints established their temple fonts as sacred pools for the restoration of health. Early Mormons viewed healing, along with glossolalia and prophecy, as important evidence of the Restorations validity; and miraculous healings were a common hallmark of early Mormon conversions. Often, converts were healed upon their baptism or confirmation. Jane Snyder Richardss brother had converted to Mormonism and experienced such a healing. Jane resisted baptism; but when she fell quite ill and experienced a partial paralysis, her brother blessed her. She wrote:
As my brother rose from his knee, I showed him my restored arm and hand and begged for baptism. He remonstrated for it was now midwinter and Ice would have to be broken and the exposure might be fatal. But death I was not afraid of. Only I must be baptized. In consequence of my persistence I was carried to the Lake the next day where Ice a foot thick had been broken. The people had congregated in great numbers. Some had told us that my brother would be arrested if he should immerse me in the critical situation I was in However it was done. And I was well from that time. My disease was of baptism. While there is some f luidity of the ritual formulation, as this paper makes clear, baptism for health was a discrete healing rite within the Mormon liturgy. For a comparison, see our Baptism for Healing and Women as Healers: Twin Trajectories of Early Mormon Ritual, Paper presented at the Mormon History Association Conference, May 2007, Salt Lake City; see also Jonathan A. Stapley and Kristine Wright, The Forms and the Power: The Development of Mormon Ritual Healing to 1847, under review. 10John T. McNeil, ed., and Ford Lewis Battles, trans., Calvin: Institutes ** of the Christian Religion, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 2:1466.

* * cured.11*
Similar healing baptisms were experienced by prominent * * * while missionaries like David W. early Mormons like John Smith,12* 13+ 14+ + Patten and Heber C. Kimball were known to make healing pronouncements contingent upon baptism. In one instance, a missionary promised healing to a woman if she would consent to baptism; her hearing was restored but she later left the Church, attributing the apparent miracle to the effect of cold water or other natural + Healings that resulted from convert baptisms and subsecauses.15+ quent Church inactivity were so common in the missionary labors of Addison Pratt that he lamented being asked to baptize a woman + + whom he suspected of only desiring a miraculous cure.16+
***
11Jane Snyder Richards, Autobiography, n.d., 67, microfilm of holo-
graph, Historical Department Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City (hereafter cited as LDS Church Library). **** 12Irene M. Bates and E. Gary Smith, Lost Legacy: The Mormon Office of Presiding Patriarch (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996), 109. 13The following is related in Lycurgus A. Wilson, Life of David W. + Patten: The First Apostolic Martyr (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1900), 89: In administering the healing ordinance David had a method of procedure peculiarly his own. On reaching the bedside, he would first teach the principles of the Gospel and bear his testimony to their truth, when he usually made a promise that the invalid should be healed if he would agree to accept baptism. President Abraham O. Smoot, of Utah Stake, once said he never knew an instance in which Davids petition for the sick was not answered, and this was also the testimony of President Wilford Woodruff. 14Stanley B. Kimball, Heber C. Kimball: Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer ++ (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 48; Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball, an Apostle: The Father and Founder of the British Mission (Salt Lake City: Kimball Family, 1888), 17879. 15Nelson Winch Green, Fifteen Years among the Mormons: Being the Nar+++ rative of Mrs. Mary Ettie V. Smith, Late of Great Salt Lake City: A Sister of One of the Mormon High Priests, She Having Been Personally Acquainted with Most of the Mormon Leaders, and Long in the Confidence of the Prophet, Brigham Young (New York: H. Dayton, 1859), 19; emphasis Greens. ++++ 16S. George Ellsworth, ed., The Journals of Addison Pratt (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1990), 442. While the journal entry occurred
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NAUVOO: RITUAL FORMALIZATION
Beginning in the earliest days of the Church, Joseph Smith sought to endow members of the Church with charismatic power, including the power to heal. From the proto-endowment of 1831 to the pentecostal events in the Kirtland Temple 1836, Joseph insisted that the elders receive the heralded gifts that follow true believers.17*As one regional newspaper observed in the months before the Kirtland Temple was finished, they assure you, with the utmost confidence that they shall soon be able to raise the dead, to heal the sick, the deaf, * Further, the common Mormon ritual the dumb, and the blind[.]18* of anointing the sick exists as an adaptation of the Kirtland Temple * * In Nauvoo, Joseph expanded his vision of the temanointing ritual.19*
in 1850, Pratt was ref lecting on the converts of his first mission during the mid-1840s; it thus suggests the regional expectations associated with baptism during Joseph Smiths lifetime. 17Stapley and Wright, The Forms and the Power. * 18Anonymous, Letter, March 18, 1836, in the reprint of the Ohio Atlas ** in Anonymous, Mormonism, Painesville Telegraph 2 (May 20, 1836): 768. Consider the editors response to this quotation, in [Oliver Cowdery?], The Atlas Article, Latter-day Saints Messenger and Advocate 2 (April 1836): 303: That this church professes to believe, that by faith the pure in heart can heal the sick, cast out devils, &c. we do not deny; in fact, it is an item in our articles of faith, and one we find in the apostles; but, that we profess to be able to raise the dead, or ever expect to be, or in fact, have a wish to call back, to this scene of suffering, those who are freed from it, is utterly and unequivocally false. Having been in the church from its organization, we have overheard this item preached; and that a man, a stranger, who was here a few hours, to have heard any thing of the kind, is not very unaccountable to us, when we consider what else he has written. See also Josephs November 12, 1835, teachings to the Twelve. Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 198992), 2:77. 19Stapley and Wright, The Forms and the Power. Joseph Smith per*** formed the only reliable extant accounts of anointing for healing before the administration of the Kirtland rituals. Fred C. Collier and William S. Harwell, eds., Kirtland Council Minute Book (Hannah, Utah: Colliers Publishing, 2002), 5859; Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:9192, 1045. After the Kirtland Temple ceremonies, anointing for healing became commonplace. The form of modern healing anointings retain the steps out-

* * * ple to establish it as a special space for healing.20* Later when the new rituals of the Nauvoo Temple were administered to the body of Church members, they were immediately adapted by Church leaders for healing. The prayer circle was used to consecrate oil and, in conjunction with the laying on of hands, to heal the sick, and the sick were washed and anointed for their health. In a desire to equip the Saints with the instruments of Gods power, Joseph and his contemporaries engaged in ritual expansion and developed healing rites from rituals of salvation and empowerment.21+ In 1841, Church leaders announced that the traditional salvific ordinance of baptism was to be extended, not only for the salvation of
lined for the Kirtland Temple: anointing with consecrated oil, followed by a prayer of sealing. **** 20Th. Gregg, History of Hancock County, Illinois, Together with an Outline History of the State, and a Digest of State Laws (Chicago: Chas. C. Chapman & Co., 1880), 37475, for example, printed an account of I. R. Tull, Esq., of Pontoosue, who related: In the fall of 1843 I went to Nauvoo to buy calves, and called on a blind man who had one to sell. I bought his calf, and being curious to learn his history, went in and saw his wife, with two little twin infants in a cradle, and great destitution. He told me that he had a nice home in Massachusetts, which gave them a good support. But one of the Mormon elders preaching in that country called on him and told him if he would sell out and go to Nauvoo, the prophet would open his eyes and restore his sight. And he sold out, and had come to the city, and had spent all his means, and was now in great need. I asked why the prophet did not open his eyes. He replied that Joseph had informed him that he could not open his eyes until the temple was finished, and then when the temple was finished he would open them, and he should see better than before! And he believed, and was waiting patiently for the last stroke to be made on the temple. Joseph took his wife, Emma, to the temple for her health (see note 32), and after the temple was finished people were known to seek healing there. E.g., Gregory R. Knight, ed., Journal of Thomas Bullock (181685) 31 August 1845 to 5 July 1846, BYU Studies 31 (Winter 1991): 70. This movement was not completely new. Eliza R. Snow remembered that after the dedication, the sick and the lame came [to the Kirtland Temple] to be healed. . . . [They] would throw away their crutches and go home whole. Anonymous, Quarterly Conference of the Primary Associations of Weber Stake of Zion, opened at 10 a.m., June 11, Ogden Daily Herald June 11, 1881, 2. 21For a detailed discussion of this ritual development, see Stapley and +
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the dead, but also for the benefit of health. In an October 12 epistle designed to encourage the members to finish the temple, the Twelve wrote: The time has come when the great Jehovah would have a resting place on earth, a habitation for his chosen, where his law shall be revealed, and his servants be endued from on high, to bring together the honest in heart from the four winds; where the saints may enter the Baptismal Font for their dead relations . . . a place, over which the heavenly messengers may watch and trouble the waters as in days of old, so + By inthat when the sick are put therein they shall be made whole.22+ voking the angels that troubled the waters at Bethesda, the Twelve situated the new ritual of baptism for health within the biblical narrative. John C. Bennett ref lected this perspective when he mentioned baptism for health in describing the temple font, which was constructed in imitation of the famous brazen sea of Solomon, and W. W. Phelps claimed in the Church newspaper that baptisms for health were performed in Solomans temple, and all temples that God commands to + This vision of healing rituals being performed by the anbe built.23+ cients highlights the early Mormon particularity of connecting them+ + selves with great figures, places, and activities of the Bible.24+ On November 8, 1841, Joseph Smith dedicated the original wooden font in the Nauvoo Temple. After the first baptism,25*Smith instructed Samuel Rolfe to wash his finger, aff licted by an acute and
Wright, The Forms and the Power. 22Brigham Young et al., An Epistle of the Twelve, Nauvoo, October ++ 12, 1841, Times and Seasons 2 (October 15, 1841): 569. This is the first known record of Church leaders teaching about a formalized ritual of baptism for health. 23John C. Bennett, History of the Saints; or, an Expos of Joe Smith and +++ Mormonism (Boston: Leland & Whiting, 1842), 190; W. W. Phelps, The Answer: Letter to William Smith, Nauvoo, 25 December 1844, Times and Seasons 5 (January 1, 1844): 759. ++++ 24Jan Shipps, Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), esp. 5456. 25Alexander L. Baugh Blessed Is the First Man Baptised in This * Font: Reuben McBride, First Proxy to Be Baptized for the Dead in the Nauvoo Temple, Mormon Historical Studies 3 (Fall 2002): 253, reviews the extant documentation of McBrides baptisms. Baugh does not consider any ordinances besides proxy baptisms. The evidence he presented does not rule out the possibility that McBride was also either baptized for his health

painful inf lammation called a felon, in the font, which he did; within the week, it was healed. William Clayton, in a retrospective journal entry, noted: After this time baptisms were continued in the font, and * many Saints realized great blessings both spiritually and bodily.26* The first official day of baptism was November 21. According to Wilford Woodruff, after a meeting, the Twelve repaired to the Baptismal Font in the Temple for the purpose of Baptizing for the dead, * * for the remision of Sins & for healing.27* Thus, the Twelve administered three different rituals: proxy baptism; baptism for health; and rebaptism and/or convert baptisms, which Nauvoo-era accounts frequently distinguished from other baptismal rituals by the qualifier for the remission of sins. Three weeks later, the Twelve noted that Church members were giving significant attention to baptism for the * * * dead and for healing.28* Henry Caswall and Reverend George Moore, both non-Mormon visitors to Nauvoo in 1842, viewed the font and were informed that it was used for baptisms for health, suggesting widespread awareness of the ritual.29+ Whereas the early convert baptisms that resulted in healing ref lected individual or community charisma, baptism for health was very much an institutional and liturgical development. Church leaders preached the practice and were at the vanguard of its implementa+ tion.30+ Although baptism for the remission of sins (and likely rebaptism) had been performed in the temple, Joseph Smith further clarified the proper location of various baptismal rituals at the April
or for a renewal of covenants. 26George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clay** ton (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), 532. 27Scott G. Kenney, ed., Wilford Woodruffs Journal, 18331898, type*** script, 9 vols. (Midvale, Utah: Signature Books, 198385), 2:138. **** 28Brigham Young et al., Baptism for the Dead: An Epistle of the Twelve to the Saints of the Last Days, Nauvoo, December 13, 1841, Times and Seasons 3 (December 15, 1841): 626. Joseph Fielding wrote to Orson Pratt the following month with similar observations: Letter to Orson Pratt, Nauvoo, January 1842, Millennial Star 3 (August 1, 1842): 78. 29Henry Caswall, The City of the Mormons; or, Three Days in Nauvoo, in + 1842 (London: J. G. F. & J. Rivinton, 1842), 16; Donald Q. Cannon, Reverend George Moore Comments on Nauvoo, the Mormons, and Joseph Smith, Western Illinois Regional Studies 5 (Spring 1982): 616. 30Besides the other materials cited in this section, see also Woodruff, ++
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conference of 1842, where he proclaimed that baptisms for the dead, and for the healing of the body must be in the font, those coming into + the Church, and those re-baptized may be baptized in the river.31+ Despite his own injunction, during his wifes illness five months later Joseph ushered in further ritual development by administering the rite outside the temple and by employing repeat immersion. Josephs diarist wrote: Sister E[mma]. is worse, many fears are entertained that she will not recover. She was baptised twice in the river which evi+ + dently did her much good.32+ It is unclear why Joseph took Emma to the river; but the wooden font was reportedly difficult to keep sanitary, was perhaps not always filled, and was later replaced with stone.33*However, it is certain that, after this time, baptisms for health in the river were common; and Mormons carried their infirm to the
Journal, 2:175; Helen Mar Whitney, Scenes and Incidents in Nauvoo, Womans Exponent 11 (September 15, 1882): 57. 31Joseph Smith, Conference Minutes, Times and Seasons 3 (April 15, +++ 1842): 763. ++++ 32Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:486. Emma initially got worse but, two days later, was reportedly much better. Ibid., 487. The following month Joseph apparently baptized his wife again, this time at the temple: [November 1] President & sister E. rode up to Temple for the benefit of her health she is rapidly gaining, and [November 3] Rode out with E. to the Temple. Ibid., 490. Alexander L. Baugh For This Ordinance Belongeth to My House: The Practice of Baptism for the Dead Outside the Nauvoo Temple, Mormon Historical Studies 3 (Spring 2002): 5354, notes several instances of baptism for the dead being administered outside of the temple during this period as well. 33On the fonts condition, see Brigham Young, Speech, Nauvoo, * April 6, 1845, Times and Seasons 6 (July 1, 1845): 956. There was some concern among Church members that replacing the font after Josephs death was a deviation from his teachings. Perhaps for this reason the wooden font was retrospectively labeled as temporary. Apparently, the Twelve decided to replace the font in the winter of 184344, before Josephs death. William Clayton, Journal, Journal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (chronological scrapbook of typed entries and newspaper clippings, 1830present), December 31, 1844, LDS Church Library, in Selected Collections from the Archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2 vols., DVD (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, [Dec. 2002]), 2:1. The best chronology of temple construction is Lisle G Brown,

* water, sometimes great distances in blankets or on chairs.34* One apostate colorfully claimed that it has been a caution to see the river foam * * with [Mormons] on Sundays after meeting in warm pleasant days.35* On August 10, 1845 John Taylor recorded Sunday events that are perhaps indicative of such activities: I baptized my mother, and my nephew, John Rich and his sister Elizabeth for their health; and John and Jerusha Smith, son and daughter of the late Bro. Hyrum Smith, * * * Patriarch for their sins.36* While several accounts of baptisms for health involve Joseph Smith,37+a recollection that best highlights Josephs feelings about the rituals virtue, actually proved inefficacious. Lucy Walker Kimball, one of Josephs plural wives, recorded Josephs baptism of her younger sister when she fell ill. Joseph took responsibility for the child because he had sent the father on a mission and their mother was dead, and explained:
[]I am under the greatest obligations to look to her welfare and have come to take her home with me, where I can look after her myself,[] instead of taking her into the house he told the boys to drive down to the Mississippi River, then took her in his arms and baptized her, then brought in Sister Emma, Noble woman that she was, helped change her clothingand all that loving hearts and willing hands could do, Chronology of the Construction, Destruction and Reconstruction of the Nauvoo Temple, http://users.marshall.edu/~brown/nauvoo/nt-parent. html (accessed October 30, 2007). The controversy surrounding the temple font construction appears to have lasted late into the Utah period. Abraham Cannon, Diary, April 10, 1892, photocopy of holograph, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. 34E.g., Two Friends, Elder John Brush.No. IV, Autumn Leaves ** [Lamoni, Iowa] 4 (April 1891): 175; Charles B. Petty, The Albert Petty Family: A Genealogical and Historical Story of a Sturdy Pioneer Family of the West, Based on Records of the Past and Knowledge of the Present (Salt Lake City, Deseret News Press, 1954), 163. 35Oliver H. Olney, The Absurdities of Mormonism Portrayed (n.p., ca. *** 1843), 8. **** 36Dean C. Jessee, The John Taylor Nauvoo Journal, BYU Studies 23 (Spring 1983): 238. 37See, e.g., Mary Jane Thompson, Joseph Smith, the Prophet, Young + Womans Journal 17 (December 1906): 54.
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was done but a few days only she lingered, then joined her dear + mother in the spirit world and we were left more lonely than before.38+
Josephs repeat baptism of Emma also foreshadowed the practice of immersing individuals seven times when baptizing for health. While there is no explicit extant explanation for the seven-fold baptism, it is likely derived from the biblical account of Elisha bidding Namaan to wash seven times in the Jordan. Various Christian groups + however, multiple imhave practiced baptism by trine immersion,39+ mersions are associated only with baptism for health in the Mormon liturgy. In December 1842, for example, Horace S. Eldredge cut holes in the ice seven morning[s] running to baptize a sick friend; and four months later, Willard Richards baptized his wife Jennetta + + Being immersed seven seven times in four days over two weeks.40+ times persisted as a regular, though not universal, form of baptism for health. Although several early accounts make it clear that baptism for health commonly occurred, they do not clarify the precise ritual formulation nor the relationship between early baptism for health and confirmation.41* However, confirmation appears to be associated with baptism for health from the earliest moments. Wilford Wood-
38Lucy Walker Kimball, Autobiography, n.d., 7, microfilm of type++ script, LDS Church Library. For Brighams feelings toward the ritual, see History of Brigham Young, Deseret News, March 17, 1858, 9, in which Church historians wrote that Young was attacked with the most violent fever [he] ever experienced and after days of suffering and being administered to he desired to be baptized in the river. 39In America, contemporary with early Mormons, the Old German +++ Baptist Brethren (called the Dunkers or Tunkers at the time) practiced trine baptism (also called triune or baptism by triple immersion). ++++ 40Horace S. Eldredge, Journal, undated paragraph following daily entries for June 1842, holograph, LDS Church Library; Willard Richards, Journal, April 15, 16, 27 and 28, 1843, on Selected Collections, 1:31. 41Joseph Grafton Hovey, Reminiscences and Journals, 13, microfilm * of holograph, LDS Church Library, wrote, My wife Martha was sick Even abortion took plaise and she was very low But she was healed By going to the Baptizemal Font an immersed for helth; see also Margaret Gay Judd Clawson, Rambling Reminiscences of Margaret Gay Judd Clawson, quoted in Carol Cornwall Madsen, ed., In Their Own Words: Women and the Story of Nauvoo (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994), 216. A cursory reading

ruff recorded that on April 29, 1842, with Br C. C. Rich I Baptized about one hundred for the remission of Sins the healing of the Body & the dead while Elder Young & others confirmed them as they came * out of the water.42* James Palmer remembered the summer 1842 healing of his wife at the temple: [She was] taken to the Baptismal font in the basement of the temple and there to be baptized for her health and that with the laying on of hands and prayer of faith she was * * that hour restored to health.43* The laying on of hands in this case seems to have been part of a confirmation ritual. The first explicit account of baptism for health confirmation that we have found in our research is that of Norton Jacob who was baptized for his health while on the trail with the vanguard pioneer company of 1847. After being baptized he described having the ritual confirmed upon him by sev* * * eral leaders in the company.44* Once baptism for healing was no longer limited to the temple font, the practice proliferated geographically. In late 1842, Edson Whipple, a convert from Philadelphia, moved to Nauvoo and his wife was baptized for her health shortly thereafter. He testified of the practices efficacy to family and friends in Philadelphia and Boston: There have been hundreds baptized in the font and in the river for their health and in every case it has proved useful.45+One non-Mormon in Boston noted that missionary George J. Adams mentioned + baptism for health in his preaching.46+ Later that year, Adams and Jedediah M. Grant, then presiding in Philadelphia, baptized several
of these accounts suggests that they occurred in 1841, but their location in the temple makes 1842 the more likely date. 42Woodruff, Journal, 2:175. ** 43James Palmer, Reminiscences, 70, microfilm of holograph, LDS *** Church Library. **** 44Ronald O. Barney, ed., The Mormon Vanguard Brigade of 1847: Norton Jacobs Record (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2005), 19394. 45Edson Whipple, Letter to Philadelphia, December 17, 1842, + Nauvoo; see also Edson Whipple, Letter to Bro. Hess [temporary presiding elder in Philadelphia], n.d., Nauvoo; and Edson Whipple, Letter to Boston, May 7, 1843, Nauvoo, all in Edson Whipple Record Book, microfilm of typescript, LDS Church Library. 46Henry Larkin Southworth, Journal, 14, microfilm of holograph, ++ LDS Church Library.
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+ branch members for their health.47+ The expansion of baptism for health outside the temple did not, however, lessen the potency of or desire to perform the ritual within + + the temple. Following the removal of the wooden font,48+ Brigham Young announced at the April 1845 General Conference: We will have a fount that will not stink and keep us all the while cleansing it out: and we will have a pool wherein to baptise the sick, that they may recover. And when we get into the fount we will show you the priesthood and the power of it: therefore, let us be diligent in observing all the commandments of God.49*Three years earlier Daniel Kidder evidenced baptism for health as a simple incentive to finish the tem* but later temple practice illustrates the Latter-day Saints comple,50* mitment to performing the ritual in their holy temples. That baptism for health was viewed as separate and distinct from other baptismal rituals in Nauvoo is illustrated by the scattered references to administering the ritual to children under the age of eight, a practice not extant in later periods. Abraham Hunsaker had his three-year-old son baptized in the temple font in the spring of 1842, and Seymour B. Young told a 1921 general conference that his
47Maurine Carr Ward, Philadelphia Pennsylvania Branch Member+++ ship: 18401854, Mormon Historical Studies 6 (Spring 2005): 69, 74, 90. ++++ 48An Epistle of the Twelve, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in all the World, Times and Seasons 6 (January 15, 1845): 779, states: There was a font erected in the basement story of the Temple, for the baptism of the dead, the healing of the sick and other purposes; this font was made of wood, and was only intended for the present use; but it is now removed, and as soon as the stone cutters get through with the cutting of the stone for the walls of the Temple, they will immediately proceed to cut the stone for and erect a font of hewn stone. 49Brigham Young, Speech, Nauvoo, April 6, 1845, Times and Seasons * 6 (July 1, 1845): 956. The Times and Seasons 6 (January 20, 1846): 1096, announced that the font was almost finished, but Virginia S. and J. C. Harrington, Rediscovery of the Nauvoo Temple: Report on the Archaeological Excavations (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1971), 33, note that the font was probably used in late 1845. The extent of its use before the Mormons left Nauvoo is uncertain. 50Daniel P. Kidder, Mormonism and the Mormons (New York: G. Lane & ** P. P. Sandford, 1842), 205, 214.

* * father had baptized him for his health before he turned eight.51* Bathsheba Smith wrote to her missionary husband about their three-month-old son: George Albert was sick last saterday and sunday. He had quite a feavor. I was vary uneaseey about him . . . I took him to the fount and had him baptised and sinse then he has not had * * * Furthermore, while baptism for any feavor. He is about well now.52* health had become a formalized rite for Church members, healings associated with convert baptisms also continued, although records of them became less frequent with the passage of time.53+
EXODUS AND EARLY UTAH When the Saints were expelled from Nauvoo, they carried their healing rituals with them. Baptisms for health were performed along the trail and beyond. Eliza R. Snow, likely using her diary as source material, wrote in the voice of her brother and future prophet Lorenzo, describing the dangerous fever that consumed him at Garden Grove: While in this condition, Elder Phineas Richards, the father of Apostle F. D. Richards, assisted by other kind brethren, took me from my bed, wrapped in a sheetplaced me in a carriage, drove to a stream of water, and baptized me in the name of the Lord, for my recovery. The fever immediately abated, and through kind, unwea***
51Abraham Hunsaker, Journal, in Q. Maurice Hunsaker and Gwen H.
Haws, History of Abraham Hunsaker and His Family (Salt Lake City: Hunsaker Family Organization, 1957), 2829; Seymour B. Young, Report of the Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, April 4, 1921 (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, semi-annual), 114 (hereafter cited as Conference Report). **** 52Bathsheba B. Smith, Letter to George A. Smith, October 2, 1842, LDS Church Library, quoted in Kenneth W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey and Jill Mulvay Derr, eds., Womens Voices: An Untold History of the Latter-day Saints, 18301900 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1982), 122. Another possible example of such a baptism is Mary E. B. Jones, Some Recollections of the Prophet Joseph Smith, unnumbered pages, 1, microfilm of holograph, LDS Church Library. 53For examples of healings associated with convert baptisms in the + post-Nauvoo era, see Woodruff, Journal, 3:403; James Bell, Letter to Orson Pratt, Wolverhampton, January 29, 1850, Millennial Star 12 (May 1, 1850): 153; John Thomas Giles, Diary, 189091, May 16, 1891, 4849, digital copy of holograph, Perry Special Collections.
84
ried nursing and attention . . . I was delivered from suffering and re+ It is clear from contiguous entries in Elizas jourstored to health.54+ nal that Lorenzo was sick, but the casual reader might not realize that his baptism was specifically a baptism for health. Helen Mar Whitney similarly expanded her fathers Nauvoo diary, which had little to suggest that several baptisms in Nauvoo were for health. In his July 12, 1845, entry, Heber C. Kimball wrote, among other things, that Sister Sarah [Sarah Ann Whitney] was very sick at Brother Winchesters. I stade thare Most of the night. Four days later, after discussing the travails of his day, he noted: At 6 Ockock Wm. Geen was buried most of the Twelve present. After dark I went to the River and Baptized Sarah + [Ann Whitney] and Si[s]ter Winchester.55+ Helen Mars account, published in Utah in 1883, explains: Sarah Peeke, was very sick at Brother Stephen Winchesters, and he [Heber] sat up with her most of the night. The evening of the 16th, after witnessing the death of Brother William Gheen, who died at 7 oclock in the evening, father took Sarah and Sister Winchester to the river and baptized them for their health. He was paying them for the board of his wife and two + + daughters, whom he had adopted.56+ While baptism for health was sufficiently commonplace that
++
54Eliza R. Snow Smith, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow
(Salt Lake City: Deseret News Company, 1884), 8990. Historians writing in the voice of their subjects was a staple of early Mormon historiography as notably exemplified in the histories of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. See Howard Clair Searle, Early Mormon Historiography: Writing the History of the Mormons 1830-1858 (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1979).This 1884 account spells out the rites context in more detail than contemporary records. Elizas diary entry for June 17 reads simply, L. was baptizdI returnd to Col. Ms in the eve. Lorenzos journal during this period, a retrospective summary of events, does not mention his baptism at all, although he noted: About that time was taken sick with fever, (25th of May), I never had such a severe fit of sickness before since my recollection. My friends and family had given up most all hopes of my recovery. Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, ed., The Personal Writings of Eliza Roxcy Snow (1995; rpt., Logan: Utah State University Press, 2000), 136. Lorenzo Snow, Journal, 184147, MS 3187 1, LDS Church Library. 55Stanley B. Kimball, On the Potters Wheel: The Diaries of Heber C. +++ Kimball (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1987), 130; brackets his. ++++ 56Helen Mar Whitney, Scenes in Nauvoo after the Martyrdom of the

details in accounts are frequently omitted, records of its occurrence during the immediate post-Nauvoo era are explicit and numerous. The first pioneers performed baptisms for health directly across the Mississippi from Nauvoo, along the overland trail and in the Omaha Nation territory.57*Members of the Mormon Battalion administered the ritual, and baptism for health expanded to wherever Church members were located, including to branches outside * Adaptaof the Great Basin, to the Pacific Islands, and to Britain.58* tion to the informal circumstances of migration and rudimentary settlements led to performing such baptisms in streams, springs,
Prophet and Patriarch, Womans Exponent 11 (April 15, 1883): 170. It is evident that Stanley Kimball and Helen Mar Kimball drew different interpretive conclusions while editing Heber C.s diary. Another example is an 1850 entry in Samuel Whitney Richards, Diary . . . 18241909, 3 vols. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Library, 1946), 1:96: At the Council House 3/4 of day went up and baptized my Wife in the Warm Spring. Maurine Carr Ward, Winter Quarters: The 18461848 Life Writings of Mary Haskin Parker Richards (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1996), 36, concluded from surrounding entries and the lack of any baptismal record that it was a baptism for health; Maurine Carr Ward, email to Jonathan Stapley, September 10, 2007, printout in our possession. Our thanks for her explanation. 57See, for example, Edmund Ellsworth and A. Galloway, A Brief Re* cord of the First Handcart Company, Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine 8 (1927): 17: [June 19, 1846] We camped at ten minutes to twelve p.m. Plenty of wood and water. Several were baptized by Elder John Oakly for their health. See also their entry for June 20, 1846, pp. 1718. Robert Lang Campbell, Diary, September 27, 1847, 44, digital copy of holograph, Perry Special Collections, noted: [Across the river from Nauvoo] Got baptized for my health. Woodruff, Journal, 3:68, recorded on August 15, 1846, at Cutlers Park, Omaha Nation: I Baptized Phebe in the evening for the restoration of her health. It seemed to be a benefit to her. 58Henry W. Bigler, Extracts from the Journal of Henry Bigler, Utah ** Historical Quarterly 5 (April 1932): 37; Daniel Tyler, A Concise History of the Mormon Battalion in the Mexican War, 184647 (Salt Lake City: n.pub., 1881), 140; Union Branch, Iowa, Records, 185152, September 19, 1851, internally dated, microfilm of holograph, LDS Church Library; Francis Asbury Hammond Sr., Journal, September 15, 1856, microfilm of holograph, LDS Church Library (we thank John J. Hammond for kindly sharing this reference); S. George Ellsworth, The History of Louisa Barnes Pratt: Mor-
86
and even at sea in the Atlantic while immigrating to the United * * When the first pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, States.59* Church leaders dammed City Creek and used the resulting pond * * * In the winter, breaking for rebaptisms and baptisms for health.60* ice for such rites was not uncommon, demonstrating members commitment to them.61+ Several individuals recorded the form in which baptism for health were administered in the early pioneer era. Warren Foote wrote of his experience crossing the plains in 1850: I was impressed to be baptized for my health; and requested brother Mulliner to perform the ordinance; which he did; and was then administered to by + William Snow, who was on the trail the same year, rethe brethren.62+ corded several baptisms: we found Br John Moon on the prarie So bad he could not walk to his waggon we laid hands on him helped him to his wag[on] & baptised him 7 times anointed him & he was much
mon Missionary Widow and Pioneer (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1998), 144; Ellsworth, The Journals of Addison Pratt, 478; Edmund F. Bird, Letter to President Wells, August 31, 1864, Southampton, Millennial Star 26 (September 24, 1864): 622; Local and Other Matters, Deseret News, April 9, 1873, 151; Milton H. Hardy, Letter, Canterbury, March 29, 1875, Millennial Star, reprinted in Deseret News, May 26, 1875, 271. 59John Lyon, Dairy [sic] of a Voyage from Liverpool to New Orleans: On *** Board the Ship International, Commanded by Capt. David Brown, with a Crew, 26 in Number, and a Company of 419 Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later [sic] Day Saints, under the Presidency of Elders Arthur, Lyon and Waddington (Keokuk, Iowa: 1853), 5. This eight-page diary was published without a colophon; however, according to Lyons biographer, it was published in Keokuk and distributed in 1853. T. Edgar Lyon Jr., John Lyon: The Life of a Pioneer Poet (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1989), 19091 note 10. **** 60Journal History, August 7, 1847, 1, in Selected Collections, 2:1; George A. Smith, Memoirs of George A. Smith, 361, in Selected Collections, 1:32; Barney, The Mormon Vanguard Brigade of 1847, 238. 61See for example: James Amasa Little, Biography of Lorenzo Dow + Young, Utah Historical Quarterly 14 (January, April, July, October 1946): 121. 62Warren Foote, Journal, excerpted in Carol Cornwall Madsen, ed., ++ Journey to Zion: Voices from the Mormon Trail (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1997), 419.

+ better[.]63+ While Snow administered the seven-fold baptism for health in one day, in December of that same year Azariah Smith broke ice on a body of water in Sanpete County and was baptized for his health once, then, three weeks later, rebaptized on six successive days + + for a total of seven.64+ Single and sevenfold baptisms for health were the most common forms of the ritual, though records of other numbers of immersion are extant.65*Additionally, these accounts illustrate how Mormons administered several types of healing rituals at the same time, a phenomenon that persisted into the twentieth century. Part of the relationships that Mormons established with Native Americans involved baptism, often multiple times. In 1851, Bishop Aaron Johnson baptized Ammon (also Ammornah or Amorah), the * brother of Ute Chief Walker, for his health.66* Ammon apparently did not consider himself a Mormon, since he later participated in the * * Walker War against Mormon settlements.67* Mormon missionaries had no hesitation in holding mass baptisms for many tribes, including * * * Walkers band.68* George Hill recorded the baptism of hundreds of Shoshones in 1876. Many of these individuals also received baptism 63William Snow, Autobiography, ca. 1850, 67, digital copy of holo-
+++
graph, Perry Special Collections. Snow baptized seven other people that day and, two days later, baptized John Moon for his health a second time. ++++ 64Azariah Smith, Journal, December 17, 1850, 5152, microfilm of holograph, LDS Church Library. 65For a triple immersion, see Sarah Jane York Tiffany, Autobiogra* phy, 18591932, 6, microfilm of typescript, LDS Church Library. Joseph Lee Robinson, Journal, June 67, 1853, 58, microfilm of typescript, LDS Church Library, baptized his wife twice in two days. This repetition is probably not a ritual prescription but simply a repeat administration. It was not uncommon to repeatedly administer healing rituals, such as anointing several times. 66Luke William Gallop, Journal, April 27, 1851, microfilm of holo** graph, LDS Church Library. 67Howard A. Christy, The Walker War: Defense and Conciliation as *** Strategy, Utah Historical Quarterly 47 (Fall 1979): 415, 417. **** 68Ronald W. Walker, Wakara Meets the Mormons, 184852: A Case Study in Native American Accommodation, Utah Historical Quarterly 70 (Summer 2002): 226; W. Paul Reeve, Making Space on the Western Frontier: Mormons, Miners, and Southern Paiutes (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 76; Journal History, July 13, 1854, in Selected Collections, 2:2.
88
for health, and at least one woman was apparently healed from possession by an evil spirit.69+Since nineteenth-century Mormons often believed that sickness was caused by Satans inf luence, healing rituals + Several records attest had power in physical and spiritual spheres.70+ to the use of baptism for health and anointing as a means of exor+ cism.71+ RETURN OF THE TEMPLE FONT Several years before the dedication of the Manti Temple, one Church leader told members in Sanpete about a promise made by the Prophet Joseph in regard to the baptismal fonts for the benefit of those who had not faith to be healed by the ordinance of the laying on of hands, that God would send His angel to sanctify the waters, that in them they might be baptized for their heath and through that be re+ + No contemporary records show Joseph teaching this prestored.72+ cise formulation, and it is likely an expansion of the Twelves 1841 epistle (note 22). At the 1856 general conference, Brigham Young directed a private dedication of the Endowment House font. The First Presidency and other men knelt around the sacred pool, and Heber
69George W. Hill, Letter, October 1, 1876, Journal History, October + 1, 1876, 2, in Selected Collections, 2:7. Compare to George W. Hill, Cases of Miraculous Healing in A String of Pearls: Second Book of the Faith-Promoting Series, edited by George Q. Cannon, 2d ed. (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1882), 9092. See also Charles E. Dibble, The Mormon Mission to the Shoshoni Indians, Utah Humanities Review 1 (July 1947): 27993. 70See for example Bush, Health and Medicine among the Mormons, ++ 4445; Paul Reeve The Devil Was Determined to Kill the Babies: Matters of Communal Health in a Nineteenth-Century Mormon Town, paper presented at the Communal Studies Association Conference, St. George, Utah, September 25, 1999, photocopy in our possession. 71For examples of baptism for health exorcisms, see John Pulsipher, +++ A Short Sketch of John Pulsipher (n.p., 1970), 6263; Edmund F. Bird, Letter to President Wells, Southampton, August 31, 1864, Millennial Star 26 (September 24, 1864): 622. For examples of anointing exorcisms, see Jedediah M. Grant, March 11, 1855, Journal of Discourses, 2:27677; Rachel Elizabeth Pyne Smart, Autobiography, 18701930, 45, microfilm of typescript, LDS Church Library. ++++ 72C. H. Wheelock, Sermon summary, in (No author), Sanpete Stake Quarterly Conference, Deseret News, March 1, 1882, 85.

C. Kimball dedicated it, conceptualizing the font and its purpose in language reminiscent of the same epistle: Let thine Angel O Lord touch this water & this Font with his Finger that it may be holy unto Thee Lord. Further, he dedicated it for the living and the dead and that the sick may be healed of evry infirmety that we may be renewed in body & spirit in all things.73*The original font was defective and the following decade, Brigham Young dedicated either a new or repaired font for the remission of sins for the Healing of the sick & for * Baptism for the dead.74* Though the font was used for baptisms for health, no formal re* * Mary cords of living baptisms were kept for the Endowment House.75* Ann Freeze recorded one example: Went to the Endowment House with Jane Sophia & Lillie. Sophia & Lillie were Baptized for the restoration of their health they were blessed by Jos F Smith & John Tay* * * The fact that Church leaders participated in these rites highlor.76* lights the institutional commitment to the pattern set by Joseph Smith that temples be centers of ritual healing.77+
73Woodruff, Journal, 4:459. He lists other participants as Brigham * Young, Heber C. Kimball, Jedediah M. Grant, Edward Hunter, Joseph Young, Daniel H. Wells, Albert Carrington, Leonard W. Hardy, James C. Little, and Gilbert Clements. In other words, participants were apparently attending at Youngs invitation, not the Twelve or another official group. 74Ibid., 6:173. On the original fonts conditions see Lisle G Brown, ** Temple Pro Tempore: The Salt Lake City Endowment House, in this issue. 75James D. Tingen The Endowment House, 18551889, 1974, 15, *** typescript, Perry Special Collections, summarizes the Endowment House records and states that no living baptisms were performed. That is demonstrably incorrect. The font was frequently used for rebaptisms and baptisms for health. On September, 4, 1873, Brigham Young preached in the Tabernacle: We can, at the present time, go into the Endowment House and be baptized for the dead, receive our washings and anointing, etc., for there we have a font that has been erected, dedicated expressly for baptizing people for the remission of sins, for their health and for their dead friends. Journal of Discourses, 16:187. **** 76Mary Ann Freeze, Diaries, 187599, January 12, 1876, photocopy of holograph, Perry Special Collections. 77For other healings in the Endowment House, see Jedediah S. Rog+
90
+ + The first baptisms in both the Logan78+ and Salt Lake79+ temples were for the recipients health. The events surrounding the dedication of the Logan Temple font are particularly illustrative. After Franklin D. Richards was baptized for his health, Rachel Ridgeway Grant, mother of Heber J., was immersed in the font. Heber described the rite: She was baptized seven times for her health and hearing. Prests Taylor and Cannon, Apostles Erastus Snow, Moses Thatcher and H. J. Grant confirmed mother. Prest Geo. Q. Cannon being mouth. Bishop David Cannon of Saint George officiated in baptizing. I never felt better in my life than while assisting in my + + Thus, even before proxy work for the mothers confirmation[.]80+ dead began, Church members sought special healings in the temple fonts. While baptisms for health were common and were administered as needed outside the temples, the ritual also figured prominently in efforts to rally community faith for special cases of healing. For example, baptisms for health were known to occur in conjunction
ers, ed., In the Presidents Office: The Diaries of L. John Nuttall, 18791892 (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2007), 22; Sketch of Sister Bathsheba Smith: Worker in the Endowment House, Young Womans Journal 4 (April 1893): 29596. 78Woodruff, Journal, 8:251. Although Woodruff writes that F. D. ++ Richards was the first to be baptized and that the baptism was for his health, L. John Nuttall recorded that it was a baptism for the dead. However, Nuttall also notes that Richards was confirmed for the renewal of his covenants. Rogers, In the Presidents Office, 14546. Nuttall was probably mistaken. See also Donald G. Godfrey and Kenneth W. Godfrey, eds., The Diaries of Charles Ora Card: The Utah Years, 18711886 (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2006), 52122. 79Frederick Kesler, Diary No. 9, May 23, 1893, University of Utah Spe+++ cial Collections, quoted in Kimberly Day, Frederick Kesler, Utah Craftsman, Utah Historical Quarterly 56 (Winter 1988): 35. Baptisms for health were also performed on the first day of baptisms at the St. George Temple. John D. T. McAllister, Temple Manifestations, Contributor 16 (January 1895): 147. ++++ 80Heber J. Grant, Diary, May 21, 1884, typescript excerpts in D. Michael Quinn Papers, Special Collections, Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, quoted in Rogers, In the Presidents Office, 14546 note 47.

with ward fast meetings.81*These regular meetings were a time for members of the community to gather in the spirit of fasting and prayer, often for a specific purpose. In one such meeting Celia Owen, who suffered from a long-term aff liction, was baptized seven times * and then walked for the first time in two years.82* With the return of temple fonts as a location for healing, a hierarchy of healing rituals developed. The story of Levi Mathers Savage and his wife, Hannah Adeline Hatch Savage, is particularly instruc* * Following a comtive. Adeline was ill for much of her married life.83* plicated childbirth in September 1887, she was confined to her bed. After four difficult months, she was baptized for her health in a river near her home in Mexico. She continued to suffer, finding little relief; and nine months later, she was baptized yet again. Still suffering ill health, she and her husband resolved to make the great effort of a pilgrimage to the Logan Temple:
On account of poor Adelines tedious sickness, she became very anxious to go to Utah, enter the Temple and undergo medical treatment. . . . She would not rest contented without making an effort to enter the Temple. So later in the fall or winter of 1888 I with Adeline and her little daughter Alvenia left Diaz by wagon in company with some of our neighbors and started for Utah. . . . This was a very tedious trip for us, as Adeline was helpless; I was obliged to carry her in my arms like a babe every time we changed cars or every time she was moved
*
81K. A. Burnell, Ten Days as the Guest of the Latter-Day Saints, Chi-
cago Advance, rpt., Deseret News, August 11, 1869, 223. This account reports baptisms for health at the Tabernacle. Even though temples became the general location of such rituals, they still occurred outside temples into the twentieth century. Life Story of John Ivan Andrus (ca. 1970), in Milo Andrus, Juniorthe Man and His Family: Genealogical Records and Life Sketches, edited by Leone Andrus Taylor (Provo, Utah: J. Grant Stevenson, 1971), 342, describes an inadvertently comical 1910s baptism for health performed by a young priest in the Tabernacle. 82Hannah Adeline Savage, Record of Hannah Adeline Savage, Woodruff ** Arizona, and Journal (Pinedale, Ariz.: Petersen Publishing, 1976), 24. 83Levi S. Peterson, A Mormon and Wilderness: A Saga of the Sav*** ages, Sunstone, December 1979, 69. See also Savage, Record of Hannah Adeline Hatch Savage and Journal, and Levi Mathers Savage, Journal of Levi Mathers Savage (Provo, Utah: Mimeographed by the Brigham Young University Extension Division, ca. 1955).
92

from one place to another. . . . Adelines relatives were very kind and good to us. She entered the Temple and was baptized for her health several times this was repeated several times during the winter of 1888 * * * and 1889.84*
Joseph Smith had proclaimed that baptisms for health were exclusive to the temple but soon afterward performed the rite outside of the temple. Since that time, Mormons employed all of their healing rituals as needed, regardless of location. The return of the temples did not constrain healing rituals to within their walls. However, Church members did conserve Joseph Smiths vision of the temple as a place of physical healing and Church leaders set the example. UTAH TEMPLE PRACTICE Mormons commonly sought multiple healing rituals within the walls of the temple. Helen Mar Kimball Whitney wrote in her journal, Received a letter from FlodShed been baptized in the Manti Temple 7 times for her health once for remission of sins-then ^washed &^ anointed that she might obtain the desire of her heartwas promised that she should. Was also administered to by the brethren[.]85+Mary Ann Burnham Freeze of Salt Lake City poignantly described meeting with close friends and Church leaders in a special prayer meeting in the Salt Lake Temple, Zina Diantha Huntington Jacob Smith Young leading the circle. Mary Ann was then baptized for her health, confirmed, and then administered to by the male temple healers in the + This pattern of multiple rituals was mirrored outside garden room.86+ the temple. Before the Logan Temple was finished, Charles Ora Card wrote that he went to the Temple block & assisted in Baptizing Bro Wm Sant for his health & washing & anointing him & laying hands on him for the restoration of his health according to the instructions of
****
84Savage, Journal of Levi Mathers Savage, November 7, 1892, 3941;
compare to Savage, Record of Hannah Adeline Hatch Savage and Journal, May 4, 1904, 3. Also see entry for December 1888, replicated on May 8, 1907, pp. 1011. 85Charles M. Hatch and Todd M. Compton, eds., A Widows Tale: The + 18841896 Diary of Helen Mar Kimball Whitney (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2003), 489. Helen was herself the recipient of a similar combination of temple healing rituals (pp. 2045). 86Freeze, Diaries, September 19, 1893. ++

+ Pres. F. D. Richards & G. Q. Cannon.87+ One missionary in Tennessee wrote of a woman to whom he administered, I re Baptized her and for the restoration of her helth after I had re confirmed her in the Church I then anointed her with oil and then lade my hands on her head and prayed over her and rebuked the desease in the name of the + + Lord.88+ The Manti Temple required temple recommends from patrons desiring baptism for health.89*It is uncertain whether this was a universal rule for all temples, but such a requirement is consistent with maintaining the temples ritual purity and likely reinforced the special character of healing ordinances practiced therein. After receiving a call from Wilford Woodruff to labor as a missionary in Scandinavia, C. T. Nelson sought a special blessing before leaving his wife and four children. Having been bothered for years with a skin disease on my legs and Back, I asked the Bishop of our little town of Redmond, to reckemend me to the House of the Lord, ar [our] Temple at Manti, to recive Baptism for my health, this he did. [A]nd on the fifth of July I was Baptised in the Holy Temple of our Lord, for my helth and the promise was made by thous [w]ho seald the Ordenance on me that I should be heald and be able to walk and perform my labor and that * the desease should leave me[.]90* Temples facilitated these rituals by having special days for healings and also for all types of baptisms. Mary Ann Freeze wrote that the day before her experience, she went to the Temple to re* * After receiving a miscord my name for baptism for my health.91* sion call to the Southern States Mission, James Duffin of Toquerville made a special trip to the St. George Temple to receive healing rituals. The evening in which he arrived, Duffin spoke with the tem87Godfrey and Godfrey, The Diaries of Charles Ora Card, 135. 88Joseph Argyle, Journal, 80, microfilm of holograph, LDS Church
+++ ++++
Library. 89Manti Temple Historical Record, April 24, 1902, quoted in David John * Buerger, The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship (Salt Lake City: Smith Research Associates, 1993), 129. 90Christian Theodore Nelson, Journal, 18971901, 34 of unnum** bered pages, microfilm of holograph, LDS Church Library. It is not clear whether this blessing was fulfilled, although he successfully completed his mission. 91Freeze, Diaries, September 18, 1893. ***
94
ple president who indicated that he would have the font filled and the water warmed for me, in the temple, this being necessary, as this will not be the regular baptizing day. He was baptized for his health * * * the next morning.92* As baptism days were for both healing rituals and proxy work, individuals were often baptized for their health and then would stay at the temple to participate in proxy ordinances, sometimes for days.93+ Yearly statistics of temple ordinance work, while not ref lective of extra-temple baptisms for health, are an important metric of the + Living ordinances in the nineteenth century were a small practice.94+ fraction of total temple work; but for many years, baptism for healing was the most common living temple ordinance. The first years of the Manti Temples operation had very high rates for baptism for health and proxy baptisms, with thousands seeking healing at the temple each year. Women were the recipients of 73.6 percent of all the nineteenth-century temple baptisms for health (varying between 60 and 77 percent annually). They accounted for 51.9 percent of other tem+ (See ple ordinances (varying between 51 and 57 percent annually).95+ Figure 6.) At this time, womens health was complicated by maternity; and although the reasons have been debated, for centuries women + + Glossolalia have had higher religious participation rates than men.96+ appears to have been more common among Mormon women and
**** 92James G. Duffin, Diary, June 1617, 1887, digital copy of holograph, Perry Special Collections. 93See, for example, Lucinda Haws Holdaway, Biographical Sketch of + Lucida Haws Holdaway (Provo, Utah: n.pub., n.d.), 18; Jane Wilkie Hooper Blood, Diaries, February 23, 1892, microfilm of holograph, LDS Church Library. 94See Figures 15. Unless otherwise indicated, temple statistics as dis++ cussed in this paper are based on the annual reports of the various temples as included in Samuel Roskelleys holograph record book, Samuel Roskelley Papers, Box 1, Book 1, Special Collections, Merrill Library, Utah State University, Logan. We thank Utah State University for their kind facilitation of the batch analysis of these records and J. Nelson-Seawright for his consultation. 95Excluding the years of 1877 and 1900, for which baptism for health +++ data by sex is not available. ++++ 96Michael P. Carroll, Give Me that Ol Time Hormonal Religion, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 43 (June 2004): 27578; Rodney

Figure 1. Proxy Temple Ordinances Performed 18781900
was practiced by them for a longer duration.97*It is likely that women participated in healing rituals at a greater rate than men, just as they participated in other aspects of their religious experience. Furthermore, the temple acted as an anchor for female ritual healing, likely * increasing female participation in temple healings generally.98* The disparity between female participation in temple healing and other temple rituals highlights the need for sex parity in sealings and consequently endowments. Further, genealogical data generally has close to an equal sex ratio.
Stark, Physiology and Faith: Addressing the Universal Gender Difference in Religious Commitment, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 41 (September 2002): 495507. 97No quantitative study has been conducted comparing the inci* dence of glossolalia by sex; however, minutes and records of Relief Society meetings in the late nineteenth century frequently note manifestations of the practice. For the extended practice of female glossolalia, see Alexander, Mormonism in Transition, 294. 98The removal of women as healers in the temple was perhaps the ** greatest impetus for the end of female ritual healing in the Mormon liturgy. See Stapley and Wright, Baptism for Healing and Women as Healers.
96

Figure 2. Living Temple Ordinances Performed 18781900
REBAPTISM AND BAPTISM FOR HEALTH In 1888, the office of the First Presidency reaffirmed the universal rule of the Church that, upon arrival in the Great Basin, all * * emigrants were to be rebaptized.99* Such rebaptisms had, in fact, been instituted within days of the vanguard companys arrival in the Salt Lake Valley. Rebaptism for the renewal of covenants was also required, among other things, as a preparation to attend the temple and was frequently recommended as the verdict of Church discipline. In the 1890s Church leaders began to reevaluate the various ritual forms for baptism. While baptism for health was distinct from rebaptism, on some occasions a combined ritual was administered and the termination of rebaptism deeply inf luenced the ritual of baptism for health. In 1892 the First Presidency, then consisting of Wilford Woodruff, George Q. Cannon, and Joseph F. Smith, discussed with the Twelve the correct form to be used by the person who administers the ordinance of baptism, and President Woodruff expressed himself in favor of adhering to the words used in the revela***
99George Reynolds, on behalf of the First Presidency, Letter to Ar-
thur Eroppe, March 9, 1888, typescript, Scott Kenney Research Collection, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. Compare Orson Pratt, July 18, 1875, Journal of Discourses, 18:160.

Figure 3: Temple Baptisms for the Renewal of Covenants, Frequency by Temple, 18781900
tions of the Lord as contained in our Church publications, except in the case of baptism for the health, when the object of the ordinance might be mentioned. A formal decision was, however, not made until * * * 1893 when more members of the Twelve were present.100* Despite this ruling, the matter was still being discussed in 1894 when Abraham Cannon noted: Pres. Young was led to use several forms of baptism during his administration, but it was for a special purpose. We should adhere to the form given in the revelations of the Lord, except as we are instructed otherwise by the man who stands at the head of the Church.101+ On May 7, 1896, the First Presidency and Twelve again discussed the forms of baptism. Lorenzo Snow, then president of the
****
100The First Presidency apparently formalized the rule during their
November 29, 1893, joint meeting with the Twelve. Abraham H. Cannon, Diary, 187995, February 11, 1892, and November 29, 1893, photocopy of holograph, Perry Special Collections. 101Ibid., April 6, 1894. Savage, Journal of Levi Mathers Savage, 15, re+ corded an example of a modified baptismal prayer used in 1875: Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptized [sic] you for the remission of your sins; for the renewal of your covenants with God and your brethren,
98

Figure 4: Baptism for Health, Frequency by Temple, 18781900
Twelve, called attention to the form used when administering for the dead and Joseph F. Smith noted variations which he had observed in + the baptism for health prayer.102+ The following day George Q. Cannon drafted a First Presidency letter to temple presidents that, as part of the discussion, described differences between baptismal prayers for the living and dead. One example included the statement that the ordinance was for the remission of your sins, for the renewal of your + covenant, and for the restoration of your health.103+ After recognizing that there had been times when Church leaders required such
and for the observance of the rules that have been read in your hearing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; Amen. 102Minutes of weekly meeting of the First Presidency and Twelve, ++ Journal History, May 7, 1896, 24, in Selected Collections, 2:19. 103During the St. George Temples first year of operation, workers +++ may have administered a combined ritual of baptism for health and renewal of covenants. Temple records during the first year do not distinguish between the ordinances, and several journals note receiving or administering a combined ordinance. See for example, L. John Nuttall, Diary, transcript, 4 vols., 1:4243, Perry Special Collections. The practice was apparently widespread. Francis W. Kirkham recorded a similar baptism while serving a mission in New Zealand. Diary, October 26, 1897, 37, digital copy of holograph, Perry Special Collections.

Figure 5: Living Sealings, Frequency by Temple, 18771900
variation, Cannon noted that the governing quorums think it improper, speaking generally, for the words for the remission of sins or for the renewal of your covenant, to be used in administering the ordinance of baptism. The letter spelled out the proper formula for the prayers, but added this variation for baptisms for health:
In cases where people are baptized for their health, we see no impropriety in using the words for the restoration of your health in the ceremony. There is a difference between baptism for such a purpose and baptism for admission into the Church. One is an ordinance of salvationthe door provided by the Lord through which his children must enter into his Church, and become entitled to the blessings of the new and everlasting covenant; the other, while it may be termed in some respects an ordinance, is not imperative upon the members of the Church. If they have faith and believe, when they have some ailment, that the administration of baptism in that form will be beneficial to them, the privilege is granted to them. But there is a clear distinction between that form of baptism and the form of baptism which the Lord requires His children to obey to become
100
Figure 6: Percentage of Temple Ordinances Performed by Women, 187899
+ + members of His Church.104+
This letter highlights the liturgical distinction made by late nineteenth-century Mormon leaders between salvific baptism and baptism for health. Cannon situated baptism for health as a ritual, like anointing the sick, that was to be administered only according to the faith of participants. Conversely, he made it clear that baptism for the remission of sins was a requirement for salvation and for participation in the Church. For the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple in 1893, the First Presidency instructed stake presidents that attendees need not be rebaptized, even though this ordinance had probably been required with the opening of the Logan, St. George, and Manti temples.105* The opening of these earlier temples had seen dramatic increases in
104First Presidency, Letter to Temple Presidents, Journal History,
++++
May 8, 1896, 2-4, in Selected Collections, 2:19. 105James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day * Saints, 2d ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992), 431. Allen and Leonard quote from the letter but do not provide a citation for it. See also Joseph F. Smith, Letter to Oliver G. Snow, November 18, 1881, Joseph F. Smith Letterpress Copybooks, in Selected Collections, 1:29.

Figure 7: Proxy Baptisms, Frequency by Temple, 18771900
the frequency of temple rebaptisms for renewal of covenants and baptisms for health. (See Figures 3, 4.) Besides thirty-four during its first two months of operation, the Salt Lake Temple maintained a policy of not performing baptisms for the renewal of covenants, although it * still allowed baptisms for health.106* Still no rise in frequency of baptisms for health occurred as had been typical after other temple dedications. Baptisms for health continued at the same rate as previous years in the Logan and St. George temples. The Manti Temples rate, however, dropped significantly, from being the most common living temple ordinance to below the rate of the Logan Temple. It seems likely that these trends are related to the policy change regarding baptism for the renewal of covenants. Even though baptism for health and rebaptism were separate rituals, baptism for health was technically a form of repeat baptism. Any statement discouraging or prohibiting temple rebaptism likely led the Saints to conf late it with a deemphasis on baptism for health. Six months after the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple, the First Presidency and Twelve decided that frequent baptisms will not be al**
106Samuel Roskelley Papers, Box 1, Book 1, 6073, 168, 169.
102
lowed, giving as a reason that this sacred ordinance is becoming too * common.107* At the April 1895 general conference priesthood meeting, Charles O. Card of Alberta recorded notes on George Q. Cannons sermon: There has grown up among many who baptized for every little thing. It is improper. Confess our sins. There has been a rule that those going to Temple or coming home from our native lands but this is not required. It is not necessary except he or she has sinned es* * pecially.108* Apostle Mariner W. Merrill also preached against such baptisms in Cache Stake conference in July 1897.109+In the October general conference three months later, George Q. Cannon delivered what several historians have viewed as the official end of baptism for + the renewal of covenants in the Church.110+ Members viewed this policy shift as a serious change, with one disaffected member testifying to the U.S. Congress during the Smoot hearings that the Manifesto and + this policy change were his reasons for leaving the Church.111+ Baptism for the renewal of covenants persisted in the St. George and Logan temples; but by 1907 the Logan Temple was the only temple where baptism for the renewal of covenants was still performed (thirty-three
*** ****
107Abraham H. Cannon, Diary, November 29, 1893. 108Donald G. Godfrey and Brigham Y. Card, eds., The Diaries of
Charles Ora Card: The Canadian Years 18861903 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1993), 286. There is some evidence that not all Church authorities agreed with this direction. Over a year later and after a regular Church meeting, Apostle John W. Taylor baptized six individuals, including four for the renewal of covenants. Ibid., 355. 109J. E. Wilson, Stake Clerk, Cache Stake Conference, Deseret + Weekly, July 17, 1897, 148. 110George Q. Cannon, October 6, 1897, Conference Report, 68. For ex++ amples of historians citing this discourse as the official end of rebaptism, see Allen and Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints, 431; H. Dean Garrett, Rebaptism, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 3:1194. 111August W. Lundstrom, Testimony, in Proceedings before the Commit+++ tee on Privileges and Elections of the United States Senate in the Matter of the Protests against the right of Hon. Reed Smoot, a Senator from the State of Utah, to Hold His Seat, 4 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1906), 2:155. It is also notable that rebaptism is a cause clbre of fundamentalist Mormon schismatics.

+ + that year).112+ During the 1910s, the First Presidency (then comprised of Joseph F. Smith, Anthon Lund, and Charles Penrose), repeatedly instructed, in response to the specific cases on which they were giving counsel, that baptism for the renewal of covenants was appropriate in some cases of Church discipline that had not involved excommunication.113* It is important to note that this policy change on rebaptism for renewal of covenants did not include baptism for health, which remained a regular part of the Latter-day Saint liturgy. Although there was a decline in the annual rate of baptisms for health after the Salt Lake Temple opened, all of the temples, including Salt Lake, remained loci of special healing. In 1894 and 1895 the Contributor and Millennial Star carried a regular column that, among other things, recounted miraculous ritual healings in the temples, including those * which happened following baptism for health;114* and the Juvenile Instructor frequently included accounts of baptism for healing into the * * twentieth century.115* Both men and women acted as temple heal-
++++ 112Duncan M. McAllister, Ordinances Performed in Each of the Temples during the Year Ending Dec 31st, 1907, photocopy of holograph, Kenney Research Collection. For Logan Temple ordinance statistics for 190107, see Roskelley Papers, Box 1, Book 1, 1415. 113Office of the First Presidency, Letter to Lewis S. Pond, October 30, * 1913, typescript, and Office of the First Presidency, Letter to William H. Smart, May 5, 1915, typescript, Kenney Research Collection. See also John P. Hatch, ed., Danish Apostle: The Diaries of Anthon Lund, 18901921 (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2006), 517. In these three cases, the disciplined member had not been excommunicated. 114The Millennial Star reprinted the following columns, which origi** nally appeared in the Contributor: John D. T. McAllister, Temple Manifestations, Millennial Star 57 (January 24, 1895): 5960; M. F. Farnsworth, Temple Manifestations, Millennial Star 57 (June 6, 1895): 35659; M. F. Farnsworth, Temple Manifestations, Contributor 16 (November 1894): 63; John D. T. McAllister, Temple Manifestations, Contributor 16 (January 1895): 147; J. V. Williams, Temple Manifestations, Contributor 16 (March 1895): 312. 115See, e.g., Annie Pearl Madsen, Letter, Lake View, Utah, in Our *** Little Folks, Juvenile Instructor 34 (May 15, 1899): 31819; Maud G., Letter, Provo, Utah, in Our Little Folks, Juvenile Instructor 34 (October 15, 1899):
104
* * * ers116* and special days were set apart for healing rites.117+Individuals continued to make pilgrimages to the temple for healing, and baptism for health was a regular part of this temple activity for de+ cades.118+ In the first years of the twentieth century, such LDS Church leaders as Heber J. Grant, Marriner W. Merrill, and Anthon H. Lund + facilitated baptisms for health.119+ In 1902, the First Presidency and the Twelve approved Apostle Reed Smoots request for the baptism
639; Alice L. Reynolds, A Little Boys Faith, Juvenile Instructor 36 (July 15, 1901): 44142; Annetta Gunderson, Letter, Mill Creek, Utah, in Our Little Folks, Juvenile Instructor 39 (March 1, 1904): 159; Maria Housley, Letter, Mapleton, Idaho, in Our Young Folks, Juvenile Instructor 41 (June 1, 1906): 351. **** 116Many of the regular temple workers administered to the sick as part of their other duties. See, for example, Anonymous, Sketch of Sister Bathsheba Smith: Worker in the Endowment House, Young Womans Journal 4 (April, 1893): 29596. However there were also individuals who had specific duties as healers in the temples. Though not publicly available, at least one extant document records the activity of three temple healers in the Salt Lake Temple. Salt Lake Temple, Administration to the Sick Record, 189399, CR 306 63, LDS Church Library. One of the healers described in the register for this item, Adolphus Madsen, was actively healing in the 1910s and figures prominently in the 1914 temple healing narrative of LaVern McLellan Lloyd. Oral History, interviewed by her daughter Zitelle, February 1931, in Jefferson Ward, Grant Stake, Gleaners Treasures of Truth 1932, LDS Church Library. Austin and Alta Fife collected an account of this healing from a friend of the family. Folk Collection 4, FMC, no. 1, ser. 1, vol. 1, item 44, Special Collections, Merrill Library, Utah State University, Logan. Subsequently the Fifes corresponded with LaVern directly, who supplied a copy of her daughters interview. LaVerns account appears in Folk Collection 4, FMC, no. 1, ser. 2, vol. 10, item 2. 117Hatch, Danish Apostle, 568. This was standard practice in the tem+ ples of the era. See, e.g., Christina Willardson, Sketch of Christina Willardson: Worker in Manti Temple, Young Womans Journal 4 (April 1893): 304. 118For examples of pilgrimages, see Savage, Journal of Levi Mathers ++ Savage, 3941; T. R. Gledhill, M.D., in George C. Lambert, ed., Gems of Reminiscence: Faith-Promoting Series, No. 17 (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1915), 16970. 119Alexander, Mormonism in Transition, 291. Alexander cites Marrin+++ er W. Merrill, Journal, June 12, 1900, and Heber J. Grant, Diary, March 10,

+ + for health of a young deaf girl whose parents were not Mormon.120+ While temple records are not publicly available for this period, one can estimate ordinance frequency. The Manti Temple averaged 152 baptisms for health per year in the first quarter of the twentieth century. This average is slightly higher than the rate for 18971900, for which records are available. Live sealings at the same temple (average of 197 per year) and other Manti live ordinance rates also remained constant during this period.121*Logan Temple records for the years between 1900 and 1907 are public and show only a slight decline over * the period, with an average of 298 baptisms for health per year.122*
CONTROVERSY AND CESSATION, 191022 Uncertainty about baptism for health arose in the second decade of the twentieth century. With improvements in modern medical science and Mormonisms more general integration into the larger society, Church leaders began to avoid ritualistic practices that, * * in turn, appeared increasingly magical.123* Consequently, the therapeutic use of oil, notably manifest in repeat anointings, anointing the area of aff liction, and drinking consecrated oil fell out of fa1903, LDS Church Library; they are not publicly available. See also Anthon Lund, Journal, February 14, 1905, LDS Church Library; Marriner W. Merrill, Journal, May 14, 1901, typed excerpts on Smith Research Associates, New Mormon Studies. ++++ 120Stan Larson, A Ministry of Meetings: The Apostolic Diaries of Rudger Clawson (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993), 439. 121Only the 18881900 and 1907 records for the Manti Temple are * publicly available. However, Manti Temple Golden Jubilee, 18881938 (n.p., 1938), includes ordinance totals to the time of the books printing. As baptism for health ended in 1922, we assume that the total did not change after that date. We calculated the average by subtracting the values for publicly available years from the 1922 total and dividing the value by twenty-one years. We used a similar method for calculating the average of sealings, though the total was considered to be that of 1938 and not 1922. 122Roskelley Papers, Box 1, Book 1, 1215. ** 123The perspective that healing rituals were essentially magical was *** inherent in their proscription during the early Christian Reformation. Mormons at this time appear to be transitioning away from the pioneers magical worldview. For the modernization of medical practice, see Charles E. Rosenberg, ed., The Structure of American Medical Practice, 18751941 (Phila-
106
* * * vor.124* These rationalizations of the healing liturgy spilled over into a debate surrounding baptism for health; and Joseph F. Smith and Anthon H. Lund, both of the First Presidency, emerged as defenders of the practice. In 1912 Lund wrote of an exchange that he had with Joseph F.s son Alvin, a temple sealer:
I went to the Temple. Bro. Alvin spoke. He said he thought it was not good to be baptized for health. I spoke to him and told him while it is true that baptism has not been mentioned in the revelation for healing[,] Jesus said to the Jews which is easier to say thy sins are forgiven thee, or be thou healed? Baptism is for remission of sins, but sickness is often the effect of violation of the law of nature or of God, and therefore when faith accompanies it, baptism may be for the restoration of health. I told him when persons have faith in baptism for health we may not knock the props away from them.125+
When faced with questions about baptism for healths validity, Lund thus departed from George Q. Cannons explicit separation of baptism for health and baptism for the remission of sins to conceptualize the ritual within the Bibles healing framework. Early Christians viewed deliverance from both sickness and sin as part of the same healing process (James 5:14-15). The interplay between healing and forgiveness of sin has been debated by Christians for millennia and figures prominently in the evolution of early Christian anointing from a healing ritual to a ritual of penance and death, as well as in the + As Mormons early Christian associations of baptism with healing.126+ anchored their ritual practice in the Bible and modern revelations, they did not consider liturgical commentaries from the rest of the Christian tradition even as they experienced similar developments. Beyond considering how baptism for health functioned as a healing ritual, the younger generation of Church leaders questioned the historical validity of the practice. When Joseph F.
delphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 136. **** 124Bush, Health and Medicine among the Latter-day Saints, 7880, 100103. 125Hatch, Danish Apostle, 490. + 126The liturgical history of Christian unction is a complex topic ++ which has received attention from several international scholars. The most accessible treatment is Paxton, Christianizing Death. For an example of such debate in Mormon liturgical development, see Rulon S. Wells, April 6, 1915, Conference Report, 13536.

Smiths son and apostle Hyrum Mack Smith inquired about the origin of this healing ritual during a meeting with the First Presidency and Twelve, President Smith remarked that it had been customary to baptize for health from the early rise of the Church, and he related specific incidents showing the good effects resulting therefrom. Prest. Lund also related incidents of a like character which had taken place in the Manti temple [where he had been temple president], and remarked that there evidently exists some connection between forgiveness of sin and healing. Perhaps sensing a shift in the hierarchal zeitgeist, Lund followed these remarks with a twofold recommendation: While he felt that we should not encourage the idea of baptism for health, he felt that we should not discourage it when the desire was prompted by those asking per+ mission to be baptized for their health.127+ Lund appears to be taking a position that created a balance between competing perspectives. A decade earlier, the First Presidency had similarly vacillated when the question of women anointing came up and was discour+ + aged.128+ While female ritual healing had been a consistent part of Mormon healing liturgy since Kirtland, some began to question the practice. After considering the debate, the First Presidency affirmed female ritual healing in 1905 and even wrote a circular letter to all Church leaders in 1914 describing the various rites in which women could participate.129* Some believed that healing in the temple was simply an unnecessary inconvenience. For example, in 1918 Lund lamented, Alvin Smith [the son of Joseph F. Smith and temple sealer mentioned earlier] was the speaker. Instead of encouraging the Saints to have faith in
+++
127Minutes of the regular meeting of the First Presidency, Twelve
Apostles and Patriarch, September 11, 1913, Journal History, September 11, 1913, 67, in Selected Collections, 2:31. ++++ 128Hatch, Danish Apostle, 130. For another example of such discouragement, see Joseph F. Smith, Letter to John D. Chase, August 13, 1901, Joseph F. Smith Letterpress Copybooks, in Selected Collections, 1:30. 129Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, and Anthon H. Lund, Letter to * William A. Hyde, October 3, 1905, typescript, Scott G. Kenney Research Collection; First Presidency to Stake Presidents and Bishops, October 3, 1914, Salt Lake City, quoted in James R. Clark, Messages of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 196575), 4:31415.
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the ordinances for healing, he told the people that they could just as well have asked the Elders at home to administer as to come to the Temple. Maybe they had come a long way and should have been en* couraged to have faith.130* After President Smith died in November 1918, the Grant admin* istration maintained the status quo for several years.131* For example, in 1920, one young girl who had traveled to the temple to be baptized when she turned eight later remembered: Because of a damaged heart from a severe case of red measles I was immersed twicethe second * * time for my health.132* However, in 1921 and following the death of President Lund, the First Presidency approved George F. Richardss proposal to extricate the healers from the temple.133+Richards had replaced Lund as the new Salt Lake Temple president and consequently was responsible for all temple affairs. This change in praxis was the first
130Anthon Lund, Journal, May 21, 1918, LDS Church Library. For an** other example of shifting attitudes toward baptism for healing in the temple, see Lunds journal entry for February 12, 1915 in Hatch, Danish Apostle, 568: F[rancis]. M. Lyman spoke in the Temple meeting. He insisted that those attending the temple should be physically perfect and also spiritually so. They should not seek the Temple for health. I explained to him afterwards that on Tuesday we attend to ordinance work for health. He knew this but his talk was more in regard to endowments. 131Several authors have simply assumed that baptism for health *** ended during Joseph F. Smiths administration. This is not the case. An example is the 1919 baptism for health of Faye Davis, recorded in Annie Isadore Davis, Sketch of the Life of Annie Isadore Roundy Davis, digital copy of holograph, 4a, http://aeb.buchananspot.com/histories/AI RoundyLife/viewer.html, (accessed January 14, 2008). We thank Joseph F. Buchanan for supplying this reference. **** 132Jenny Linda Myrup Brown, Autobiography, n.d., not paged, holograph in possession of Linda Lundstrom, Roosevelt, Utah, typed excerpt in our possession, courtesy of Lisle G Brown. 133Dale C. Mouritsen, A Symbol of New Directions: George F. Rich+ ards and the Mormon Church, 18611950 (Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young University, 1982), 2012; George F. Richards, Diary Excerpts, June 22, 1921, in D. Michael Quinn Papers. In October 1921, this recommendation became official: We, the Presidency of the Salt Lake Temple, respectfully recommend the following for your approval: First: that people coming to the temple to be administered to for their health are to receive that ordinance in the assembly room of the annex, rather than in the Garden Room

of several developments that included reforming the endowment, call+ ing the wives of temple presidents as temple matrons,134+ and in 1922 ending baptisms for healing altogether. The First Presidency, then comprising Heber J. Grant, Charles Penrose, and Anthony Ivins, wrote to temple presidents: We feel constrained to call your attention to the custom prevailing to some extent in our temples of baptizing for health, and to remind you that baptism for health is no part of our temple work, and therefore to permit it to become a practice would be an innovation detrimental to temple work, and a departure as well from the provision instituted of the Lord for the care and healing of the sick of His Church. And in this connection we desire to say that the practice of Church members going to temples to be administered to is a depar+ ture from the way instituted of the Lord.135+ This official statement marks a significant contrast to the previous eighty years of healing praxis and seems to directly contraindicate not only Joseph Smiths early teachings on baptism for health and temple healing but also the personal experience of many members of the governing quorums. This repositioning of healing rituals represents a profound shift in the configuration of the boundaries between public and private religiosity and also represents a redefinition of the nature and function of the temples sacred space. Church leaders apparently sought to remove conceptions of hierarchal healing and also + + A report of felt that temple healings constrained temple resources.136+ temple work in 1924 and 1925 shows a dramatic increase in temple acof the temple, where such ordinances have heretofore been administered regularly on Tuesday of each week. George F. Richards, Joseph Fielding Smith, and Albert W. Davis of the Salt Lake Temple Presidency, Letter to Heber J. Grant, Charles W. Penrose, and Anthony W. Ivins, October 11, 1921, typescript, David John Buerger Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library. 134Mouritsen, A Symbol of New Directions: George F. Richards and ++ the Mormon Church, 18611950, 20310. 135First Presidency, Letter to Temple Presidents, December 15, 1922, +++ quoted in First Presidency, Letter to Stake Presidents, January 18, 1923, Salt Lake City, in Clark, Messages of the First Presidency, 5:224. Readers should note that Clarks commentary on the letter is ahistoric. ++++ 136Alexander, Mormonism in Transition, 291, wrote: There was concern that some members believed that going to the temple for an administration was superior to an ordinance given by a priesthood holder outside.
110
tivity with the Salt Lake Temple averaging 17,754 endowments per month compared to 2,209 per month in 1907.137* Further, the Church had constructed several new temples, and there is no question that temple resources were attenuated by this high level of activity. Church leaders also desired to limit charismata * and special cases of healing.138* This decline in the use of spiritual gifts exemplifies sociologist Max Webers description of the routinization of charismaor the transformative change in which institutional imperatives supersede charismatic origins, thus making possible the groups survival. Another example is the manifestation of glossolalia. Although the exercise of such spiritual gifts fulfilled the communal needs of early Mormons, they eventually became areas of debate, received the disapprobation of Church leaders, and were * * eventually abandoned.139* This trend is seen as late as the 1940s, when Church leaders issued the instruction that healing rituals administered by patriarchs, a tradition that had existed and had been viewed as exceptionally potent since the time of Joseph Smith Sr., were of no higher order than, nor are they to be distinguished from blessings by * * * any other priesthood holder.140*
In addition, the use of the temple for performing vicarious work for the dead had increased greatly, and the pressure for baptism and administrations for health occupied temple facilities. The footnote for this paragraph includes First Presidency to B. H. Roberts, June 2, 1924, FP, letters sent, a document that is not currently available to researchers. 137No author, Report of Temples for the Six Months Ending June 30, * 1925, in Anthony W. Ivins Papers, 18751934, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City; McAllister, Ordinances Performed in Each of the Temples during the Year Ending Dec 31st, 1907. 138Joseph F. Smith, Editorial Thoughts: The Master of the House, ** Juvenile Instructor 37 (January 15, 1902): 5051. At the turn of the century, the governing quorums repeatedly dealt with one individual who persisted in holding blessing meetings for the sick. See, e.g., Larson, A Ministry of Meetings, 263, 366, 762; Editorial Thoughts: Professional Healing, Juvenile Instructor 41 (December 15, 1906): 75253. 139See Dan Vogel and Scott C. Dunn, The Tongue of Angels: Glos*** solalia among Mormonisms Founders, Journal of Mormon History 19 (Fall 1993): 34. **** 140Handbook of Instructions: for Stake Presidents and Counselors, Bishops

Although the topic merits further study,141+it seems that the members view that the temple was a special place for healing, coupled with the younger leaders lack of familiarity with the liturgical history of baptism for health suggests the presence of a significant generation gap in the Church, manifest in inconsistent conceptions of ritual healing. The result of this shift, magnified by the periods logistical exigencies, is a separation between temple and healing liturgiesand baptism for health was left without a place in either. CONCLUSION Five years before the termination of the baptism for healing ritual, Hannah Adeline Hatch was finally released from her constant suffering through death. Although she had been baptized for her health at least twelve times between 1888 and 1910, she never found + permanent respite from her unspecified chronic disease.142+ Adelines journey seems to mirror many of the trends related to baptism for healths rise and fall within the Church. Like the majority of those seeking physical healing in the temple during this time, she was a woman; and like many of her contemporaries, Adeline made her attempts at healing by immersion most frequently during the last decades of the nineteenth century. After the turn of the century, she and many others began to broaden their search for healing therapies and remedies. Like many of the sick, Adeline incorporated hospital care, surgery, and trips to California for curative antidotes. Although the attitudes of rank-and-file Mormons toward medicine seemed to be shifting, it was more in the direction of combination than elimination. For example, in 1902 after experiencing blood clots, erratic pulse rates, and digestive difficulties, George Brimhall decided to go to California for my health. On the same day, he recorded, Went to
and Counselors, Stake and Ward Clerks and other Church Officers, No. 17 (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1944), 23. 141When and if the Heber J. Grant and George F. Richards diaries be+ come available to researchers, there will no doubt be additional insights into the cessation of baptism for health as a rite of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 142Savage, Journal of Levi Mathers Savage, 3940, 50, 56; Savage, Record ++ of Hannah Adeline Hatch Savage and Journal, 11, 18, 24, 44, and 75.
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+ temple. Baptised. Attended M.I.A.143+ Despite such accommodation and as with its origin, the ultimate demise of healing by immersion was a top-down phenomenon, originating among the upper echelons of Church leadership. Early Mormons lived in a dynamic period of literal restoration: new scripture, charismata, a biblical exodus, and the return of the healing pools of old. As their healing liturgy became separated from the temple, Latter-day Saints did not completely forsake the curative nature of these edifices but sought the temple as a place of spiritual, not physical, healing and renewal. Although not part of modern LDS praxis, baptism for healing is an integral feature of Mormon history and played an important role in the development of the modern Churchs rituals and conceptualizations of healing. It was born of Mormonisms charismatic restoration, received Joseph Smiths revelatory support, and was promoted by generations of Church leaders. Although it was ultimately eliminated from the lexicon of the faithful, it provides an illuminating window through which historians can view the health, life, and death of Mormon men and women.
+++
143Alsina Elizabeth Brimhall, ed., Diary of George H. Brimhall, 2 vols.
(Salt Lake City: Alsina Elizabeth Brimhall Holbrook Family, 1990), 1:299.

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THEY SHALL BE MADE WHOLE: A HISTORY OF BAPTISM FOR HEALTH

Jonathan A. Stapley and Kristine Wright

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 71

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 73

11Jane Snyder Richards, Autobiography, n.d., 67, microfilm of holo-

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 75

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 77

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 79

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 81

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 83

51Abraham Hunsaker, Journal, in Q. Maurice Hunsaker and Gwen H.

The Journal of Mormon History

54Eliza R. Snow Smith, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 85

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 87

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 89

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 91

The Journal of Mormon History

84Savage, Journal of Levi Mathers Savage, November 7, 1892, 3941;

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 93

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 95

The Journal of Mormon History

99George Reynolds, on behalf of the First Presidency, Letter to Ar-

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 97

100The First Presidency apparently formalized the rule during their

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 99

The Journal of Mormon History

Figure 6: Percentage of Temple Ordinances Performed by Women, 187899

+ + members of His Church.104+

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 101

106Samuel Roskelley Papers, Box 1, Book 1, 6073, 168, 169.

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 103

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 105

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 107

127Minutes of the regular meeting of the First Presidency, Twelve

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 109

The Journal of Mormon History

JONATHAN STAPLEY & KRISTINE WRIGHT/HEALING BAPTISM 111

The Journal of Mormon History

143Alsina Elizabeth Brimhall, ed., Diary of George H. Brimhall, 2 vols.

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