I love the Internet and all the fascinating things you can learn from the people who post on it.
In this morning's study of the Beatitudee "blessed are the pure in heart," I was lead to a talk given by Spencer W. Kimball entitled Becoming the Pure in Heart. In that talk, he quoted Joseph Smith who said, "the greatest temporal and spiritual blessings which always come from faithfulness and concentrated effort, never attended individual exertion or enterprise." I had never read that quote before and it fascinated me in light of what Obama said several weeks ago - "you didn't build that."
I searched on the Joseph Smith quote and came to this link: A Tale of Two Cities (of God): Bishop Hill and Nauvoo by Myron J. Fodge. In this article, Fodge provides greater context of the quote used by Kimball.
The quote came from a statement by the First Presidency on January 8, 1841.
"The greatest temporal and spiritual blessings which always come from faithfulness and concerted effort, never attended individual exertion or enterprise. The history of all past ages abundantly attests this fact. In addition to all temporal blessings, there is no other way for the Saints to be saved in these last days, [than by the gathering] as the concurrent testimony of all the holy prophets clearly proves, for it is written, 'They shall come from the east, and be gathered from the west; the north shall give up, and the south shall keep not back.' The sons of God shall be gathered from afar, and his daughters from the ends of the earth."
The statement in its entirety, can be found here. This link notes the statement was released January 15, 1841.
The rest of the article by Fodge, is quite fascinating. He describes the two approaches to perfection as demonstrated by the Mormons in Nauvoo and the Janssonists in Bishop Hill.
