...missionaries gave promising more than the "restored gospel"?

Specifically. what I mean is: many poor Europeans came to the US thinking they could escape dreadful conditions, and I have to think that at some point the missionaries (while they were handing flyers denying polygamy and handcart suffering) MUST have slipped in the "land of milk and honey" spiel to entice new members, implying that traveling to "Zion" would give them land, lot's o' land and other perks.

We know how it turned out for lots of them, however, but they couldn't get back home again, so...

I imagine there are wouldn't there be, on file at the Church resources library center?

They have many records there inaccessible to the public. They're kept internal as a part of its history but not open to public scrutiny.

One of my great great ancestors was a vice rabbi in Germany around 200 years ago. Two of his sermons are on file with the Jerusalem Historical Museum. One was given following the Napoleonic invasion of their village. Napoleon targeted the village but spared the Jewish community within. That was deemed nothing short of a miracle at the time.

His other sermon on file in Jerusalem was for the dedication of the opening of a new synagogue for their worshipers several years following the Napoleonic war.

Because he was a 'vice rabbi,' not a rabbi, he was not a frequent speaker from what I've gathered.

His tombstone was restored following the Holocaust, along with the three major rabbis he lays buried next to, in their German Jewish cemetery. Many of the tombstones were decimated - but theirs just needed restoring.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/2018 12:20PM by Amyjo.

Everyone loves to feel special, even me!

But in the case of Napoleon sparing your G-G-Grandpa's village during the French invasion of Germany, that was just standard operating procedure. But I'm sure it felt miraculous to those villagers, given what they'd been enduring up until then.

But then unfortunately, after Napoleon's very own personal Waterloo, the pendulum returned to Germanic normalcy in terms of Jewry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_and_the_Jews

But lest we laud Napolean too much, it was apparently not just the simple ideals of the French revolution (Liberty, Equality & Fraternity) which prompted his actions, as evidenced in this letter quoted in the above article:

"I wanted to make them leave off usury, and become like other men...by putting them upon an equality, with Catholics, Protestants, and others, I hoped to make them become good citizens, and conduct themselves like others of the community...as their rabbins explained to them, that they ought not to practise usury to their own tribes, but were allowed to do so with Christians and others, that, therefore, as I had restored them to all their privileges...they were not permitted to practise usury with me or them, but to treat us as if we were of the tribe of Judah. Besides, I should have drawn great wealth to France as the Jews are very numerous, and would have flocked to a country where they enjoyed such superior privities. Moreover, I wanted to establish an universal liberty of conscience."

Missionaries, like any salesman, look for good angles to work, to pry the customer from his complacency, to goad him into action.

I have no doubt that the early missionaries in Europe quickly learned that working the slums was very 'profitable' for them when they pitched moving to America, and painted beautiful word pictures of the peaches & cream, honeysuckle & wine, Abbott & Costello, and land & riches.

The fact that it was basically true didn't hurt a bit!

The conditions in Europe were indeed quite dreadful for anyone not born a first son who could inherit anything.

For many converts in those days going West was indeed choosing the better part.

Of course, it's not the same church now it was back then.
Just saying that for many people coming to America really helped sweeten the pot.