W. W. Phelps believes black skin is an indicator of spiritual standing.

Date
Mar 1835
Type
Letter
Source
W. W. Phelps
LDS
Hearsay
Direct
Reference

W.W. Phelps, Letter V, in Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 6 (March 1835): 82

Scribe/Publisher
Messenger and Advocate
People
W. W. Phelps
Audience
Reading Public
Transcription

Is or is it not apparent from reason and analogy as drawn from a careful reading of the Scriptures, that God causes the saints, or people that fall away from his church to be cursed in time, with a black skin? Was or was not Cain, being marked, obliged to inherit the curse, he and his children, forever? And if so, as Ham, like other sons of God, might break the rule of God, by marrying out of the church, did or did he not, have a Canaanite wife, whereby some of the black seed was preserved through the flood, and his son, Canaan, after he laughed at his grand father's nakedness, heired three curses: one from Cain for killing Abel; one from Ham for marrying a black wife, and one from Noah for ridiculing what God had respect for? Are or are not the Indians a sample of marking with blackness for rebellion against God's holy word and holy order? And can or can we not observe in the countenances of almost all nations, except the Gentile, a dark, sallow hue, which tells the sons of God, without a line of history, that they have fallen or changed from the original beauty and grace of father Adam?

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