Item Detail
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11659
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4
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0
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English
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George Reynolds : Secretary, Sacrificial Lamb, and Seventy
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Brigham Young University
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Ph.D. diss.
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"George Reynolds (1842-1909), a second-echelon leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is most widely remembered for his role in the polygamy "test case," Reynolds v. the United States (1879), in which Congress was justified for legislating against the Mormon practice of polygamy. Although Reynolds at first willingly submitted himself as the Church's sacrificial lamb in this case, due to continued harassment of Church leaders by the federal appointees, he became an uncooperative defendant in court. Following his eventual conviction, he served a sentence in the Utah Penitentiary as the first "prisoner for conscience' sake." In prison Reynolds began his monumental Concordance to the Book of Mormon. Also in prison and throughout his lifetime he wrote hundreds of articles for publication that were designed to teach members of the Church about gospel principles and practice. For forty-four years he served as a secretary in the Office of the President of the Church. He served two missions in England, labored as a home missionary in the Salt Lake Stake, served in numerous local and general Sunday School capacities (including First Assistant General Superintendent of the Deseret Sunday School Union), and became a general authority of the Church in the First Council of Seventy in 1890." [Author's abstract]