Clawson tells of how the fifteen church leaders held weekly prayers around an altar, dressed in robes; shared a sacrament of wine; and then engaged in heated discussions over church finances, doctrine, and policy. President Smith decided in 1902 that it would not be "wise and prudent to [continue to] show our hand in [financial] matters," saying it excited "covetousness and criticism" among church members. The previous year Clawson recorded salary "appropriations to church authorities" at $89,000, compared to "$41,000 appropriated for the poor."

The most volatile disagreements centered on polygamy, which the church renounced in 1890, though leaders continued to perform marriages in secret. In 1903 Apostle Marriner Merrill "bore testimony to the truth of the principle of plural marriage and said that the brethren of the Twelve should . . . not wait until old age comes on. Brethren, he said, do not neglect your opportunities." Ten months later Clawson, forty-seven years old, took another polygamous wife, Pearl Udall, who was twenty-four years of age.

Apostle Abraham Woodruff "was pleased to think that we could safely speak our thoughts to one another and could feel that our confidences would be held sacred, even if we were called before the courts of the land." Apostle Francis Lyman agreed: "We live in a delicate time and need to be wise and prudent in all things. No more cogs should be allowed to slip. The brethren present should be clear on this point." When Smith decided that "many things were written in private diaries which, if they fall into the hands of the enemy, might bring trouble upon the church," Clawson regreted the prohibition on further note taking "exceedingly."

Stan Larson is the curator for the Utah History, Philosophy, and Religion Archives at the Marriott Library, University of Utah. He is the author of Quest for the Gold Plates: Thomas Stuart Ferguson's Archaeological Search for The Book of Mormon; co-author of Unitarianism in Utah: A Gentile Religion in Salt Lake City, 1891-1991; and editor of A Ministry of Meetings: The Apostolic Diaries of Rudger Clawson, Prisoner for Polygamy: The Memoirs and Letters of Rudger Clawson at the Utah Territorial Penitentiary, 1884-87, Working the Divine Miracle: The Life of Apostle Henry D. Moyle, and The Truth, The Way, The Life, An Elementary Treatise on Theology: The Masterwork of B. H. Roberts. Through his own imprint, Freethinker Press, he has recently edited and published Ray R. Channing's My Continuing Quest: Sociological Perspectives on Mormonism and Marvin and Julia Bertoch's Modern Echoes from Ancient Hills: Our Greek Heritage.