[James E. Talmage]
Talmage leaves Eureka for Springville. In Springville Talmage visits and speaks at length with the former wife of Tintic's excommunicated Moses Gudmundson. Talmage seems to conclude that she was under the influence of an evil spirit and so administered to her. Talmage arrives in Springville to learn of complaints that local women have been holding secretive spiritual meetings requesting revelations, speaking in tongues, etc. without priesthood leadership or authorization.
In his journal Talmage writes the following:
I then went to . . . meet her daughter, Mrs. Erma Gudmundson, who appears to have been a victim of many painful conditions arising from the immoral state of affairs at West Tintic. She is the wife of Moses S. Gudmundson, who was excommunicated at the earlier trial. I found her to be virtually a physical wreck. She has been harassed by occasional visits and more frequent messages from her husband¿. In her impressionable state, such messages as these threaten her sanity and even her life. She was really in the grip of an evil power; and I have seldom experienced a meeting with such a potent adversary as the evil spirit by which she was possessed. She seemed to crave my aid, and yet she persistently refused to look me in the face, saying that my face and my eyes were so bright as to terrify her. I was not conscious of any unusual condition of this sort, but she turned her head and shaded her eyes whenever for the moment I caught her gaze. I proceeded to administer to her, and
rebuked the evil power, conscious all the while of a real struggle and conflict. Immediately after the administration she turned her eyes upon me and smiled, and was not disturbed by my gaze, but kept her eyes directed toward me. When I left her she was holding her baby and was in a state of comparative peace. I confess, however, that because of her weakened condition and of her state of nervous disturbance, I have not full faith that she will not suffer a relapse. [MSS 229, Box 6, Folder 2, Journal 24]
Upon my arrival at Springville this morning I was met by one of the Bishops, who requested that I meet the four Bishops of Springville together with certain relatives of the parties who have recently been dealt with in the Tintic Stake, and to this I assented. I was taken to the home of Bishop Bringhurst of the Springville 2nd Ward, where I found assembled the other Bishops and several women who were related to the unfortunate brethren and sisters with whom we have had to deal¿. They informed me of conditions that have long existed in Springville, this consisting essentially in the holding of meetings by women, and participated in by a few men, at which meetings messages were asked for. They told of alleged inspiration and revelation coming through women, and particularly of the frequency with which the gift of tongues was indulged in; and averred that by these means directions were sought as to individual and other affairs. ¿ In all these alleged proceedings, many of
which were conducted with semi-secrecy, the dominant thought seems to have been that individual inspiration, direction through speaking in tongues, and particularly dreams, were superior to all counsel or direction through the ordinary Church channels. It seems to me that the evil one is particularly busy in thus trying to undermine the faith of the people, that is of the few who are willing to be thus led, and in planting the germs of spiritual disease, generally in a soil of excessive piety. [MSS 229, Box 6, Folder 2, Journal 24]
[Chronology of the Life and Work of James E. Talmage, J. Trevor Antley, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MJsHY83JZL_n6CjWq11y1trT_CVXMMXAx2uYOWAwn0c/edit#heading=h.2zfdaoa]
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