building or other church purposes, and for the support of those engaged in church business. There are no salaried preachers. Tithing is paid in kind to the bishop, who renders a strict account, the whole finan-
ten days later by another, in which it was declared that the church fund should be disposed of by a council composed of the first presidency, the bishop and his council, and the high-council. This revelation, which is not given in the eai-liest editions of Doctrine and Covenants, will be found, how- ever, on p. 383 of the edition of 1876, and also in the Mil. Star, xvi. 183. The twelve, in an epistle dated Nauvoo, Dec. 13, 1841, direct that all money and other property designed for tithings be paid to President Joseph Smith, trustee in trust. Times and Seasons, iii. G27. Smith had been chosen to this office some time before by a general conference, at Quincy, 111. Id., ii. 579. After Smith, each president has held the position in turn. W. Richards, editor of the Deseret News, describes the system of accounts in use at the genei-al tithing-office, in his number of Nov. 29, 1851. A debtor and credit account was kept on a ledger, with all pei'sons who paid tithing. When an account was settled in full, the name was transferred to the general tithing record, or the book of ' The Law of the Lord,' and a certificate of non-in- debtedness given to the person paying, which was evidence in case of a demand from the bishop of his ward. Four kinds of certificates were is- sued at this time: one for property tithing due previous to Sept. 10, 1851; one for property tithing due in accordance with the vote of a confer- ence of the date mentioned; and one each for labor and produce tithing. These were all for the year 1851, after which only the labor and produce tithes would be required until a future conference should authorize a new levy. The business of appraising property belongs of right to the presiding bishop, but he may send one of his clerks to attend to the matter. It has been charged against Joseph Smith that his entire wealth was acquired by the diversion of tithes. The prophet, at his own estimate, had property worth one million dollars about the time of his death. He was then at the head of affairs in planning and laying out the city of Nauvoo. His estimates, based upon his faith in the prosperity of the city, may have been not unreasonable; but with the crash of the falling walls of his temple came ruin to his estate. As the general conduct of the church under Brigham was peaceful, and therefore progressive compared with the disastrous rule of his predecessor, so opportunities increased, not only for augmenting private fortunes, but for the circulation of scandal. A writer in the Salt Lake Tribune of June 25, 1879, asserts that during Brigham's term of office he received about $13,000,000 in tithes, of which 'about $9,000,000 was squandered on his family,' and dying, left the remainder to be quarrelled over by his heirs and assigns, including the church. In July 1859 Horace Greeley visited Brig- ham, who said: ' I am the only person in the church who has not a regular calling apart from the church's service, and I never received one farthing from her treasury. If I obtain anything from the tithing-house, I am charged with and pay for it, just as any one else would . . .1 am called rich, and con- sider myself worth $250,000; but no dollar of it was ever paid me by the church, nor for any service as a minister of the everlasting gospel. I lost nearly all I had when we were broken up in Missouri and driven from that state. I was nearly stripped again when Joseph Smith was murdered, and we were driven from Illinois; but nothing was ever made up to me by the church, nor by any one. I believe I know how to acquire property, and how to take care of it.'" Overland Journey to California, 213-14. The governor, in his message to the legislature in 1882, stated that tithing should be prohib- ited. The message was referred to a committee, which reported that the ques- tion being one oi a purely religious character did not call for legislative action. ' The payment of tithing, like contributions for missionary, charita-
