Barnes, Lorenzo Don.  References; to prove the gospel in its fulness, the ushering in of the dispensation of the fulness of times and the latter-day glory. (By L. D. Barnes.) [Nauvoo? 1841?]
8 p. 12.5 cm.

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Barnes’s References consists mostly of biblical “proof texts” which support the Mormon position.  It lists some three hundred citations, arranged under fifteen topical headings (pp. 1-6): “The Gospel”; “Its first principles, promises and blessings”; “The Holy Spirit and powers of godliness”; “Antiquity of the Gospel”; “Necessity of the Gospel being revealed from Heaven at the first coming of Christ”; “Necessity of the Gospel being revealed from Heaven in the Last Days”; “Millennium”; “Christ’s Second Coming”; “The Kingdom taken from the Jews and given to the Gentiles”; “The Gathering of Israel”; “Miracles and Revelations in the Last Days”; “Kingdom of God in Power and Building up of Zion”; “Book of Mormon”; “The God of Israel”; “On Priesthood.”  These are followed by a list of books referred to in the Bible but not included in it—an expanded version of the list in the Gospel Reflector, in an article entitled “Introduction to the Book of Mormon,” p. 104 (see this digital collection).

Revised editions of Barnes’s References were published at least twice in England under his name and at least twice under the name of Daniel Shearer.  Benjamin Winchester published a much larger book of references in 1842, entitled Synopsis of the Holy Scriptures.

Lorenzo D. Barnes was a much loved and respected young elder.  Born in Massachusetts, March 22, 1812, he moved with his family to Ohio in 1815 and converted to Mormonism there in 1833.  The following year he marched with Zion’s Camp and in 1835 was chosen a member of the First Quorum of Seventy.  Thereafter, his life was one of continuous missionary work, interrupted only by a brief pause at Adam–ondi–Ahman, where he served on the high council.  In the spring of 1839 he was called to accompany the Twelve to England, but a stopover on the east coast stretched into two years as he proselytized in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  Finally, in January 1842 he sailed for Great Britain.  Eleven months later Barnes died in Bradford—the first Mormon elder to die in a foreign land.  In 1852 his remains were brought from England and reinterred in Salt Lake City.

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church.  Volume One, 1830-1847. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, [1997]).  Item 116, p. 164-65.

Used by permission of the author and the Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University.