Description
The Penny Fund
In 1843, work on the original Nauvoo Temple was proceeding and it rose majestically higher on the bluff over the river. Procuring the means to build the temple or otherwise assisting in the work seems to have been on everyone’s mind. The Saints, out of extreme sacrifice, gave their all to receive those sacred ordinances.
Among those was Mercy Fielding Thompson. She wrote:
“At one time after seeking diligently to know from the Lord if there was anything I could do for the building up of the Kingdom of God, a most pleasant sensation came over me with the following words. ‘Try to get the sisters to subscribe one cent per week for the purpose of buying nails and glass for the temple. I went immediately to Brother Joseph and told him what seemed to be the whispering of the spirit of the still small voice to me. Joseph told me to go ahead and the Lord would help me. I then mentioned it to Brother Hyrum who was much pleased and did all in his power to encourage and help by speaking to the sisters in private and public, promising them they would receive their blessings in that temple. All who subscribed the one cent per week should have their names recorded in the book of the law of the Lord. I, assisted by my sister, took down and kept a record of all their names.”
On Christmas day 1843, a letter was sent to all the sisters in England reading as follows,
“Dear Sisters,
This is to inform you that we have here entered into a small weekly subscription for the benefit of the temple funds. One thousand have already joined it, while many more are expected, by which we trust to help forward the great work very much. The amount is only one cent or a halfpenny per week….
Your affectionate sisters in Christ,
Mary Smith
M.R. Thompson”
Hyrum Smith followed with another letter declaring that the penny fund was sanctioned by the First Presidency and very soon pennies were on their way across the ocean to Nauvoo. The idea was a success. Mercy said:
“Notwithstanding the poverty of the community, we had collected from the sisters, by the time the committee was ready for the glass and nails, in the treasury $500.00, which they gladly received just in time of need.”
There was one point when mobs threatened to rob and massacre the citizens of Nauvoo, Mercy and her sister Mary Fielding Smith hid the penny box “in a pile of brick which Hyrum intended for building had his life been spared.”
This was the sacrifice that the early Saints were willing to make to have a house of the Lord in their midst. What sacrifices are we willing to make for the House of the Lord?
Source: https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/memories/KWV9-HX5
