Letter from Orson Hyde, 15 June 1841
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Source Note
, Letter, , Middlesex and Surrey counties, England, to JS, , Hancock Co., IL, 15 June 1841. Featured version published in “Letter from Elder O. Hyde,” in Times and Seasons, 1 Oct. 1841, vol. 2, no. 23, 551–555. For more complete source information, see the source note for Letter to Isaac Galland, 22 Mar. 1839.
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Historical Introduction
On 15 June 1841, wrote a letter from reporting on his mission to serve as an ambassador to the Jews abroad. Hyde sent the letter to JS in , Illinois, and intended it to be published in the Times and Seasons.After proselytizing and raising funds throughout the eastern for several months, arrived in , England, on 3 March 1841. The letter featured here was the second one Hyde sent to JS from Europe, and it detailed his efforts to meet with the leadership of the Jewish community in and his authorship of materials describing the origins and tenets of the . Also included in the letter were excerpts from a booklet Hyde wrote while in . The booklet, patterned after ’s 1840 pamphlet A[n] Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions, explained the founding of the church. Hyde copied the excerpts into this letter for JS to review; he planned to have the booklet translated and published once he arrived in .also reported on his attempts to fulfill his original mission assignment to seek information regarding the “views and movements of the Jewish people.” After calling on the chief rabbi of Great Britain, , at the Great Synagogue of , Hyde was informed that the rabbi had suffered injuries from a recent accident and was unable to grant him an audience. In response, Hyde penned a letter—which he copied into his letter to JS—informing Hirschell of his “divine appointment” to meet with the Jewish communities in several major world cities. There is no evidence that Hirschell responded to Hyde’s letter.’s original letter to JS is apparently not extant. The letter was published in the 1 October 1841 issue of the Times and Seasons; that version is featured here. Although there is no known response from JS, Hyde continued his communications to JS with another letter a month later.
Footnotes
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1
Recommendation for Orson Hyde, 6 Apr. 1840; Letter from Orson Hyde, 17 Apr. 1841.
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2
See Orson Pratt, A[n] Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions, 1840. Pratt’s and Hyde’s writings were the first published accounts of JS’s first vision of Deity and were among the earliest works to systematically outline church doctrine for foreign audiences.
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3
In an earlier letter to JS from Orson Hyde and John E. Page, the two missionaries mentioned a “great work to be done in Germany” and asked for permission to write and publish a book on the church to be spread throughout the German-speaking lands. JS responded to their request with “no objections whatever.” (Letter from Orson Hyde and John E. Page, 1 May 1840; Letter to Orson Hyde and John E. Page, 14 May 1840.)
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