140 years ago today - Aug 19, 1877

Apostle Wilford Woodruff tells Sunday school meeting that he heard Joseph Smith say: "If the people knew what was behind the vail they would try by every means to commit suicide that they might get there but the Lord in his wisdom had emplanted the fear of death in every person that they might cling to life and thus accomplish the designs of their creator." Later Woodruff spends the evening preparing a "list of the Noted Men of the 17 Centaury and 18th including the signers of the declaration of Independance for Baptism on Tuesday the 21 Aug 1877." Though he did not record the incident in his journal, he later claims that he had been visited in dreams or visions by the signers of the Declaration of Independence, who had urged him to help redeem them by doing their temple work" Brigham Young preaches: "The great majority of men who have amassed great wealth have done it at the expense of their fellows, on the principle that the doctors, the lawyers and the merchants acquire theirs. Such men are impositions on the community, and they ought to be taken and put to some honorable labor such as raising potatoes, raising grain, cattle and sheep, and performing other useful and necessary labors for the good of mankind. Amen."