Fifth president; tithing reformer
Lorenzo Snow
1814–1901
1 topic · 2 dated events · 1 source
Their part in each topic
Church Finances, Tithing, and the Transparency Question
Fifth president; tithing reformer
Snow inherited a Church near bankruptcy in 1898 and made getting it out of debt his first priority. In May 1899, at St. George, he received what he described as a revelation on tithing and spent the rest of his life preaching a tithing reformation across the stakes. He told a Salt Lake audience on 30 May 1899 that the Church had 'no reserve at all.' The tithing discipline he established is the direct ancestor of the modern Church's finances.
In the timeline
2 events across 1 topics, chronological. Only events this person was actually part of — present at, responsible for, or the subject of — not every event where the name comes up.
Lorenzo Snow inherits a Church near bankruptcy
Snow was ordained president with the Church seriously in debt. A committee report summarized by Rudger Clawson put the Church's surplus or net worth at $235,482.90 against loans bearing 5 to 10 percent interest, and, in Clawson's words, showed that the Church 'if not bankrupt, was surely upon the verge of bankruptcy.' Apostle Francis M. Lyman recorded telling Snow his special mission was 'to get the Church out of debt.'
The St. George revelation and the tithing reformationhinge
Travelling to a stake conference in drought-stricken St. George, Snow reported receiving a revelation on tithing. He declared, in the Church's own retelling, that 'The time has now come for every Latter-day Saint, who calculates to be prepared for the future and to hold his feet strong upon a proper foundation, to do the will of the Lord and pay his tithing in full.' He then carried the reformation to stakes across Utah and Idaho. On 30 May in Salt Lake City he told a startled audience the Church had 'no reserve at all.'
Sources in their own name
Source records in the database whose author line names this person. Each links to the topic that uses it.
Affidavits on celestial marriage collected by Joseph F. Smith, 1869–1870
Joseph Bates Noble, Zina D. H. Young, Sarah Ann Whitney Kimball, Lorenzo Snow and others
Sworn dates, officiators and witnesses for many of the Nauvoo sealings, collected twenty-five years after the fact to answer RLDS denials.
This page is generated from the same topic records as the rest of the database, so a correction made once shows up here too. All key players · How this is built