the curse of it, I assure you they will go to work and do it. Many will want to work on the for shares, and if we dont create work for those who are coming here we cannot keep them here. It is a commandment from God through the prophet Joseph to build that and shall we say we cant build it? no. If we say we can build it, we can do it. There are sacred records deposited in the foundation of that and it is our duty to build the house and cover up those records. Now he will propose to the council that after we have sold all the shares we can at the conference, he will buy up the remainder and have the building go up. We may as well put the roof on the next fall as not. He wants to go into this business, and let [p. [176]]
These records, which were deposited in the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House on 2 October 1841, included the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon. An inventory of the items is given in JS, Journal, 29 Dec. 1841.