History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

TITHING. 351
building or other church purposes, and for the support
of those engaged in church business. There are no
salaried preachers. Tithing is paid in kind to the
bishop, who renders a strict account, the whole finan-
ten days later by another, in which it was declared that the church fund
should be disposed of by a council composed of the first presidency, the
bishop and his council, and the high -council. This revelation, which is not
given in the earliest editions of Doctrine and Covenants, will be found, however,
on p. 383 of the edition of 1S76, and also in the Mil. Star, xvi. 183. The
twelve, in an epistle dated Nauvoo, Dec. 13, 1841, direct that all money and
other property designed for tithings be paid to President Joseph Smith,
trustee in trust. Times and Seasons, iii. C27. Smith had been chosen to this
office some time before by a general conference, at Quincy, 111. Id., ii. 579.
After Smith, each president has held the position in turn. W. Richards,
editor of the Deseret News, describes the system of accounts in use at the
general tithing-office, in his number of Nov. 29, 1851. A debtor and credit
account was kept on a ledger, with all persons who paid tithing. When an
account was settled in full, the name was transferred to the general tithing
record, or the book of 'The Law of the Lord,' and a certificate of non-indebtedness
given to the person paying, which was evidence in case of a
demand from the bishop of his ward. Four kinds of certificates were issued
at this time: one for property tithing due previous to Sept. 10, 1851;
one for property tithing due in accordance with the vote of a conference
of the date mentioned; and one each for labor and produce tithing.
These were all for the year 1851, after which only the labor and produce
tithes would be required until a future conference should authorize a new levy.
The business of appraising property belongs of right to the presiding bishop,
but he may send one of his clerks to attend to the matter. It has been
charged against Joseph Smith that his entire wealth was acquired by the
diversion of tithes. The prophet, at his own estimate, had property worth
one million dollars about the time of his death. He was then at the head of
affairs in planning and laying out the city of Nauvoo. His estimates, based
upon his faith in the prosperity of the city, may have been not unreasonable;
but with the crash of the falling walls of his temple came ruin to his estate.
As the general conduct of the church under Brigham was peaceful, and
therefore progressive compared with the disastrous rule of his predecessor,
so opportunities increased, not only for augmenting private fortunes, but
for the circulation of scandal. A writer in the Halt Lake Tribune of June
25, 1879, asserts that during Brigham's term of office he received about
$13,000,000 in tithes, of which 'about §9,000,000 was squandered on his
family,' and dying, left the remainder to be quarrelled over by his heirs and
assigns, including the church. In July 1859 Horace Greeley visited Brigham,
who said: 'I am the only person in the church who has not a regular
calling apart from the church's service, and I never received one farthing
from her treasury. If I obtain anything from the tithing-house, I am charged
with and pay for it, just as any one else would. . .1 am called rich, and consider
myself worth $250,000; but no dollar of it was ever paid me by the
church, nor for any service as a minister of the everlasting gospel. I lost
nearly all I had when we were broken up in Missouri and driven from that
state. I was nearly stripped again when Joseph Smith was murdered, and
we were driven from Illinois; but nothing was ever made up to me by the
church, nor by any one. I believe I know how to acquire property, and how
to take care of it.' Overland Journexj to California, 213-14. The governor, in
his message to the legislature in 1882, stated that tithing should be prohibited.
The message was referred to a committee, which reported that the question
being one of a purely religious character did not call for legislative
action. ' The payment of tithing, like contributions for missionary, charita-