The first non-English Latter-day Saint work, Orson Hyde’s Ein Ruf aus der Wüste, was published in 1842 in Frankfurt. The section recounting the life of Joseph Smith and the translation of the Book of Mormon has been translated multiple times and is available at the Joseph Smith Papers Project, in Dean Jessee’s 1989 The Papers of Joseph Smith: Autobiographical and Historical Writings vol. 1, and in Dan Vogel’s Early Mormon Documents vol. 1. That leaves around 100 of the 115 total pages still untranslated.
As a first step toward making this source more widely available, a translation of the title page and a few notes by Jonathan Green are made available in the links provided below.
- Title page
- Foreword
- Translating the name of the church in 1842
- 3: Orson Hyde on priesthood
- 4.1: Orson Hyde on the Godhead
- 4.2: Orson Hyde on new scripture
- 4.3: Orson Hyde on faith
- 4.4: Orson Hyde on repentance
- 4.5: Hyde on baptism
- 4.6: Orson Hyde on confirmation
- 4.7: Orson Hyde on the sacrament
- 4.8: Orson Hyde on confession and disfellowship
- 4.9: Orson Hyde on blessing and baptizing children
- 4.10: Orson Hyde on continuing revelation
- 4.11: Orson Hyde on lay clergy
- 4.12: Baptism for the dead
- 4.13-14: Hyde on the Sabbath
- 4.15-16: Hyde on washing of feet
- 5.1: Hyde on the end time
- 5.2: Hyde on wealth
- 5.3: Hyde on Missouri
- 5.4: Hyde on Illinois
- 5.5: Hyde’s police report
- 6: Appendix