Lorenzo Snow Biography Quotes 5 Report mistakes

Early Life
Lorenzo Snow was born on April 3, 1814, in Mantua, Ohio, to Oliver Snow and Rosetta Leonora Pettibone Snow, members of a hardworking New England-descended family who had settled in the Western Reserve. He grew up alongside a gifted older sister, Eliza R. Snow, who would become one of the most influential Latter-day Saint poets and a key organizer of women's initiatives. The Snow household prized learning, thrift, and personal discipline. Lorenzo showed an early aptitude for study and self-improvement, teaching school as a young man and cultivating habits of exactness and order that would later define his administrative leadership.

Conversion and Formation in the Latter-day Saint Movement
The early 1830s religious ferment in northern Ohio placed Lorenzo near the emerging Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His sister Eliza's conversion and her association with Joseph Smith introduced him to the new faith. In 1836, during the Kirtland period, he was baptized. He witnessed the strains and spiritual vigor of that community, studied the scriptures closely, and soon undertook short preaching assignments. After the Saints gathered to Illinois, Snow followed to Nauvoo, where he encountered Joseph Smith directly and gained confidence in the prophetic leadership that animated the movement. In Nauvoo he developed a voice that combined poetry, doctrine, and practical counsel, and he articulated a concise couplet that later became a touchstone of Latter-day Saint teachings on human exaltation: As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be.

Missions and International Leadership
Snow's gifts made him a natural missionary. In the 1840s he labored in the British Isles, part of a cohort of emissaries that included Orson Pratt and other rising leaders. In 1850 he was appointed to open the Italian Mission. Working in the Piedmont valleys among the Waldensian communities and coordinating with fellow missionaries in Switzerland and France, he organized branches, published tracts, and supervised early translation efforts so that the message could be read in local languages. His diplomacy, calm temperament, and patience in the face of legal and social obstacles marked him as a careful builder of institutions rather than a headline-seeking evangelist.

Exodus West and Apostolic Calling
The murder of Joseph Smith in 1844 and the subsequent leadership transition under Brigham Young brought years of movement and hardship. Snow shared the westering experience of the Latter-day Saints, leaving Illinois in 1846 and reaching the Great Basin after the difficult seasons at Winter Quarters. In 1849 Brigham Young called him to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, placing him in company with figures such as Heber C. Kimball, Wilford Woodruff, Orson Pratt, Franklin D. Richards, Erastus Snow, and George Q. Cannon. The Twelve divided responsibility for missionary work, colonization, and internal governance, and Lorenzo quickly became known for clear instructions, careful record-keeping, and loyalty to collective decision-making.

Builder of Brigham City and the Cooperative Ideal
Assigned to northern Utah, Lorenzo Snow presided for many years over the Latter-day Saints in Box Elder County and made Brigham City a model of self-help and community planning. He fostered a network of cooperative enterprises that included farming, manufacturing, and mercantile activity. The system emphasized local production, equitable distribution, and moral economy, as leaders throughout the territory experimented with similar arrangements. Snow's version was distinguished by methodical accounting and a steady tone that reduced factionalism. Though national market pressures eventually outpaced such cooperatives, the Brigham City undertakings trained managers, stabilized families, and demonstrated Snow's ability to implement ideals in tangible institutions.

Trials, Perseverance, and Global Ministry
Snow's apostolic travels continued through the 1850s and 1860s. While visiting the Hawaiian Islands he suffered a near-drowning and was revived by his companions after prolonged efforts, an episode that deepened his sense of providence and purpose. He also navigated the tensions of the federal antipolygamy campaigns. Like many high-ranking Latter-day Saint leaders of his generation, he practiced plural marriage and defended it as a covenantal principle then taught by the church. In the 1880s he was prosecuted and served a term in the territorial penitentiary. The experience, though humbling, did not embitter him; he emerged with heightened sympathy for families under pressure and with renewed commitment to obedience and institutional stability.

President of the Quorum of the Twelve and National Reconciliation
When Wilford Woodruff became President of the Church in 1889, Lorenzo Snow became President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. During the difficult transition that included Woodruff's 1890 Manifesto ending new plural marriages in the church, Snow stood by the First Presidency, worked closely with George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith, and helped the Saints reconcile faith with the demands of United States law. He visited congregations, moderated debates among local leaders, and encouraged a posture of civility toward national authorities while preserving core religious identity. These years honed the prudence and patience that would mark his own presidency.

President of the Church
Following the death of Wilford Woodruff in 1898, Lorenzo Snow succeeded him as the fifth President of the Church. He organized his First Presidency with trusted colleagues George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith and moved swiftly to address chronic church indebtedness. After a spiritual experience in the Salt Lake Temple, he launched a comprehensive tithing reformation. He asked every household to pay a full tenth of increase, urged bishops to conduct orderly tithing settlement, and tied local spending to careful budgets. He then traveled widely across settlements to preach the doctrine with clarity and warmth. The immediate result was improved solvency; the lasting legacy was a culture of fiscal integrity that sustained temples, meetinghouses, and humanitarian works.

Snow also emphasized prompt institutional order. Observing long delays that had sometimes followed a president's death, he taught that the senior apostle should reorganize the First Presidency without unnecessary waiting. That practice, accepted by his associates in the Twelve, promoted continuity and reduced uncertainty. He strengthened temple administration and encouraged regular worship, seeing in temple service a school for faith and a bond across generations. He cultivated cordial relations with civic leaders and national officials, signaling the church's determination to be a loyal participant in American life while remaining spiritually distinctive.

Teachings, Style, and Character
Lorenzo Snow's teachings were concise, practical, and elevated by poetry. His famous couplet about divine potential captured a larger pattern in his ministry: he expected Saints to improve themselves steadily while trusting in a God who desired their growth. He prized exactness in keeping commandments, punctuality in obligations, and mutual responsibility in communities. Yet his manner was gentle; he listened carefully and often counseled with peers like Orson Pratt and George Q. Cannon before acting. He drew strength from his sister Eliza R. Snow, who, under Brigham Young's direction and with her own remarkable initiative, helped rebuild the Relief Society in Utah and organized education and charitable enterprises for women and children. Their sibling partnership embodied the blending of conviction and culture that shaped Latter-day Saint society.

Family and Final Years
Snow's family life reflected the early Latter-day Saint practice of plural marriage, and he carried heavy domestic responsibilities with a sense of stewardship for the material and spiritual welfare of his household. He maintained a personal regimen of study and prayer, even as age advanced. Supported closely by counselors George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith and by the Quorum of the Twelve, he guided the church through financial straightening, stronger administrative habits, and a posture of reconciliation after decades of conflict. He died in Salt Lake City on October 10, 1901. Leadership then passed to Joseph F. Smith, who had long worked at Snow's side and would extend many of the policies Lorenzo had set in motion. Snow's legacy endures in the institutional solidity he bequeathed and in a theology that dignifies human effort under divine grace.

Our collection contains 5 quotes who is written by Lorenzo, under the main topics: Justice - Freedom - Faith - Gratitude - God.