It is unclear why Kimball took a leading role in assembling the youth and speaking to them, although it was perhaps because Kimball’s son William Henry Kimball (who was sixteen at the time) was involved. Heber C. Kimball may have seen the meetings as a type of instructional school similar to Sunday schools that were apparently held in Kirtland, Ohio, when the Kimballs lived there. Likewise, when Kimball served a mission in England in 1840, the Millennial Star, the church’s newspaper there, advocated the formation of Sunday schools where “old and young” could be taught “the first principles of the Gospel of Christ.” (“A Short Sketch,” Times and Seasons, 1 Apr. 1843, 4:156; Kimball, Heber C. Kimball, 311; Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, “Life Incidents,” Woman’s Exponent, 15 Aug. 1880, 9:42; “Questions and Answers,” Millennial Star, Aug. 1840, 1:95–96.)

Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

Kimball, Stanley B. Heber C. Kimball: Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986.

Woman’s Exponent. Salt Lake City. 1872–1914.

Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star. Manchester, England, 1840–1842; Liverpool, 1842–1932; London, 1932–1970.

This was a line from the hymn “How Firm a Foundation,” which was included in John Rippon’s A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors, first published in 1787, and in the first Latter-day Saint hymnal. (Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, 537, 963–964; Hymn 82, Collection of Sacred Hymns [1835], 111–113.)

Julian, John, ed. A Dictionary of Hymnology: Setting Forth the Origin and History of Christian Hymns of All Ages and Nations with Special Reference to ose Contained in the Hymn Books of English-Speaking Countries, and Now in Common Use. . . . New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1892.

It is unclear who attended this meeting, but when the organization was formally established later in March, the officers consisted of William Walker, William Cutler, Lorin Walker, James Monroe, Stephen Perry, Marcellus Bates, R. A. Allred, William Henry Kimball, and Garrett Ivins. (“A Short Sketch,” Times and Seasons, 1 Apr. 1843, 4:156.)

Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

Maudsley was baptized with his wife, Elizabeth Foxcroft Maudsley, in 1841 in England. The two immigrated to Nauvoo in 1842. Sutcliffe Maudsley, who suffered from severe asthma, was the artist who drew the profile of JS that was featured on a map of Nauvoo printed in 1842. (Bule, Sutcliffe Maudsley, 1, 5, 7, 36; JS, Journal, 25 June 1842; Historical Introduction to Copyright for Map of the City of Nauvoo, 17 Dec. 1842.)

Bule, Steven. From Calico Printer to Portrait Painter: Sutcliffe Maudsley, Nauvoo Profilist. Orem, UT: A Better Place, 2002.

It is unclear whether the youth followed JS’s counsel here. Maudsley is listed as owning property in 1843 in the Munson addition of Nauvoo. (Book of Assessment, 1843, Fourth Ward, 15, Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL.)

Nauvoo, IL. Records, 1841–1845. CHL. MS 16800.

Before this meeting, Kimball had given several talks to the youth, teaching them “the duties of children to their parents, to society, and to their God” and “exhorting them to lay aside their vanity, lightmindedness, pride, and frivolity” so that they could “show themselves worthy of the religion which they had embraced.” He also counseled them “to shun evil company” and “to be obedient to their parents.” In addition, Kimball told the youth to devote themselves to “the studies commonly deemed necessary to fit them for active life, and polish them for society,” as well as “to the study of the Scriptures, by the book of Mormon, the book of Doctrine and Covenants, and the theological work of their most talented elders.” Finally, Kimball warned them “against the evils to which they were exposed, and the temptations to which they were peculiarly subject,” telling them to avoid “balls and such places.” (“A Short Sketch,” Times and Seasons, 1 Apr. 1843, 4:154–155.)

Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.