Doing Away with Old Customs

I have mentioned earlier that the Church evolves and as it does new programs are brought on and others are revamped or done away with. Much the same could be said for the way certain ordinances are performed in the Church. There are some that no longer exist while others continue, but have changed from the way the pioneers practiced them. The blessing of babies is one such ordinance that has changed over time. This used to be done when the baby was eight days old. There is something else unique to how the pioneers blessed babies that we no longer do today. What was it?

a.      Only the father gave the blessing while the mother held the baby

b.      The baby was anointed with oil

c.       This was never done at church

d.      This was only done in a meeting specifically designed to bless just babies

Yesterday’s answer:

D)   Fairyland

The following from Mark Twain’s book Roughing It:

We had a fine supper, of the freshest meats and fowls and vegetables—a great variety, and as great abundance. We walked about the streets some, afterward, and glanced in at shops and stores; and there was fascination in surreptitiously staring at every creature we took to be a Mormon. This was fairyland to us, to all intents and purposes—a land of enchantment, and goblins, and awful mystery. We felt a curiosity to ask every child how many mothers it had, and if it could tell them apart; and we experienced a thrill every time a dwelling-house door opened and shut as we passed, disclosing a glimpse of human heads and backs and shoulders—for we so longed to have a good satisfying look at a Mormon family in all its comprehensive ampleness, disposed in the customary concentric rings of its home circle.

Mark Twain, Roughing It, 93.