| 176 The following resolution was adopted:
Resolved, That the Bishop be authorized to make a call upon the church for means to support the missionary efforts now being made.
The call of the Bishop provided for above was subsequently made, and reads as follows:
In accordance with the instruction of the late General Conference, I hereby make this call upon the church for funds to sustain the missions appointed and continued by vote of said conference.
Subscriptions from branches and individuals in districts where there are Bishop's agents, should be paid to such agents, and such funds as are paid in answer to this call, and so specified, should by them be sent to me together with all actual tithings received by them, as heretofore directed. But other offerings not so specified, but paid in to be used in the districts by the instructions of their conferences are to be so retained and used, if needed, or, if not, then they may be sent to the general treasury of the church. Where there are no agents all these funds should be sent directly to me.
As the servant of the church, and in the hope of the gospel, I subscribe myself your brother in the Lord,
ISRAEL L. ROGERS,
Bishop of the Church.
-The Saints' Herald, vol. 24, p. 144.
The editor of the Herald on April 15 made the following comments on the conference:
The session was one characterized by great unanimity of feeling among the elders present. The number attending was not large, yet the building
We know of no law of the church creating or authorizing "sealing up to eternal life," as an ordinance; other than such sealing as may be found in the "laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost," in confirming members into the church. We therefore decide that such persons as may have performed a rite supposed to be one of "sealing unto life," as an ordinance of the church, have erred, but, such error is not of such a nature as to become a crime against the law governing the church, as the fact of such "sealing up unto eternal life," can not be determined as to its truth, or falsity, except at the judgment day, when the acts of all are to appear for arbitration and decision; therefore the act of those men referred to in the inquiry submitted to us, and of which complaint is made, is not such an act as demands official inquiry and condemnation.
While this is our decision; we decide, while there is no ordinance of the kind referred to known to the law, the written law of the church, it is therefore of the things of the unwritten law, if the right exists at all to seal up unto eternal life, other than in confirmation by the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, the performance of such an ordinance, or the solemnizing of such a rite is of doubtful propriety, and should in no case be done except upon unqualified directions of the Spirit. Further, that elders should not teach, nor practice such rites as a rule of the church.
All of which to respectfully submitted.
Done at Plano, Illinois, April 1877.
JOSEPH SMITH,
W. W. BLAIR, of the First Presidency.
-The Saints' Herald, vol. 24, p. 139
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