Music has always been an important form of worship for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the early days of the Church, Saints sang hymns borrowed from other religions. Soon, however, it became apparent that the LDS people needed a hymnal of their own, one containing songs concerning their unique doctrine and beliefs. The answer came in July of 1830, three months after the Church’s organization, when Emma Smith received a revelation from the Lord through her husband, the Prophet Joseph Smith, which directed her to “make a selection of sacred hymns . . . to be had in my church” (D&C 25:11). Five years later, the Saints had their first hymnal.
Emma Smith prepared the book with the help of W. W. Phelps. The pocket-sized volume boasted 90 hymns, 39 of which were written by LDS poets, including Parley P. Pratt and Eliza R. Snow. As was customary at the time, the songbook contained only the text of the hymns; the Saints paired the words with familiar melodies, both secular and non. E. Cecil McGavin reminds us of the importance of Emma’s work: “We have neglected to impress upon the minds of this generation how diligently she [Emma Smith] fulfilled this divine mission to which she was called. If Emma had been a woman of leisure she could have complied with the request in a short time. She was, however, very particular in the care of her family, being a housekeeper of immaculate cleanliness allowing no outside duty to interfere with her devotion to her children and husband.” (Improvement Era, Jan. 1936, p. 38)
In 1840, Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt and John Taylor created another hymnal, A Collection of Sacred Hymns for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Europe. The volume soon became known as the Manchester Hymnal, thanks to the English city where it was published. This popular hymnal contained 271 hymn texts, at least 36 of which were written by Parley P. Pratt. In 1886, President John Taylor appointed five men, all of whom had served or would yet serve as organist or conductor of the Tabernacle Choir, to create a musical supplement to the Manchester Hymnal. The result, Latter-day Saints’ Psalmody appeared in 1889. Constantly under revision, the Manchester Hymnal saw more than two dozen subsequent editions; the final volume was published in 1912 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
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