, Letter, Ratisbon (Regensburg), Bavaria, to JS, , Hancock Co., IL, 17 July 1841. Featured version published in “Letter from Elder Hyde,” Times and Seasons, 15 Oct. 1841, vol. 2, no. 24, 570–573. For more complete source information, see the source note for Letter to Isaac Galland, 22 Mar. 1839.
Historical Introduction
On 17 July 1841, wrote a letter from Regensburg, Bavaria (now in Germany), to JS in , Illinois, to share information regarding his mission abroad. This was Hyde’s third letter to JS since arriving in Europe.
After leaving on 20 June 1841, arrived in , the Netherlands, where he met with the area’s chief rabbi to discuss the restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land. Hyde traveled through the Netherlands, unsuccessfully seeking audiences with local Jewish leaders before continuing on to . After traveling through Mainz and Frankfurt, Hyde stopped in Regensburg, where he boarded with a hospitable German family for nearly two months. The family reportedly taught him German in exchange for English lessons and offered him the use of their carriage during his stay.
planned to travel to , but because he had failed to send his passport to the Austrian consulate upon his arrival in Frankfurt, he was required to forward the passport to Munich and await approval before he could legally enter Austria. While he waited, Hyde concentrated on learning German and writing. This letter to JS was one among many of his resulting works. Combining a mission report and travelogue with sentimental expression, the letter outlines Hyde’s efforts to fulfill his charge to “be [an] agent and representative in foreign lands . . . and converse with the priests, rulers and Elders of the Jews.”
JS likely received this letter in in September 1841. The original letter is apparently not extant, but it was published in the 15 October issue of the Times and Seasons; that is the version featured here.
An 1837 travel handbook warned travelers that “without the signature of an Austrian ambassador or minister on his passport, no traveller is allowed to enter the Austrian dominions.” If a signature was not procured before reaching the border, travelers would be “turned back to seek the signature . . . of an Austrian minister, in the nearest capital.” (Handbook for Travellers in Southern Germany, 107, italics in original.)
Handbook for Travellers in Southern Germany; Being a Guide to Bavaria, Austria, Tyrol, Salzburg, Styria, &c., the Austrian and Bavarian Alps . . . . London: John Murray and Son, 1837.
Postal transmission times were irregular. Letters from England to Nauvoo generally took between thirty and ninety days to arrive. Hyde’s letter was written on 17 July and received before 2 October in Nauvoo, when JS read it aloud at a churchconference, suggesting JS received it sometime in September. (JS History, vol. C-1, 1228.)
slumber in my bosom; but the winds of foreign climes have fanned it into a flame.
I have seen some of the finest specimens of painting and sculpture of both ancient and modern times. The vast variety of curiosities, also, from every country on the Globe, together with every novelty that genius could invent or imagination conceive which I have been compelled to witness in the course of my travels, would be too heavy a tax upon my time to describe, and upon your patience to read. I have witnessed the wealth and splendor of many of the towns of Europe,—have gazed with admiration upon her widely extended plains—her lofty mountains—her mouldering castles,—and her extensive vineyards: For at this season, nature is clad in her bridal robes, and smiles under the benign jurisprudence of her Author.
I have, also, listened to the blandishments, gazed upon the pride and fashion of a world grown old in luxury and refinement, viewed the pageantry of Kings, Queens, lords and nobles; and am now where military honor, and princely dignity, must bow at the shrine of clerical superiority. In fine, my mind has become cloyed with novelty, pomp and show; and turns with disgust from the glare of fashion to commune with itself in retired meditation.
Were it consistent with the will of Deity, and consonant with the convictions of my own bosom; most gladly would I retreat from the oppressing heat of public life, and seek repose in the cool and refreshing shades of domestic endearments, and bask in the affections of my own little family circle. But the will of God be done! Can the Mesiah’s kingdom but be advanced through my toil, privation, and excessive labours; and at last sanctify my work through the effusion of my own blood! I yield, O Lord! I yield to thy righteous mandate! Imploring help from thee in the hour of trial, and strength in the day of weakness to faithfully endure until my immortal spirit shall be driven from its earthly mansion to find a refuge in the bosom of its God.
If the friends in shall be edefied in reading this letter from , I hope they will remember one thing; and that is this; that he hopes he has a and two children living there; but the distance is so great between him and them, that his arm is not long enough to administer to their wants. I have said enough. Lord, bless my and children, and the hand that ministers good to them in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Adieu for the present.
Good rest on all the saints, throughout the world,
By the 1830s the burgeoning industrial revolution and developments in bureaucratic practice led to a modern German confederation of states that increasingly relied on clerical practices for administration rather than on the earlier monarchical models. However, the application of these practices could vary greatly from state to state; for example, “the Bavarian bureaucracy in the mid-nineteenth century . . . was plainly less hierarchical and authoritarian than the Prussian version.” (Osterhammel, Transformation of the World, 606.)
Osterhammel, Jürgen. The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century. Translated by Patrick Camiller. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014.
Hyde’s mission was uniquely public. Not only were his letters home intended for publication, but his assignment as an “agent and representative in foreign lands” was to obtain as much information as possible from Jewish rabbis and community leaders regarding the “present views and movements of the Jewish people” and to “communicate the same to some principal paper for publication.” (Recommendation for Orson Hyde, 6 Apr. 1840.)