Francis M. Lyman · 1908 April General Conference · 1908-04-04
Transcribed from the OCR of the official printed Conference Report of the Seventy-Eighth Annual Conference (April 1908), hosted at the Internet Archive (conferencereport1908a). Heavyweight page-by-page collation against the OCR witness completed; running heads, the preceding hymn/prayer session material, and the following musical-number credit removed; OCR misreads corrected verbatim against the witness. Grade reflects the officially published Conference Report.
No witness list recorded beyond the primary source.
Proofread against the source text.
Proofread against the Internet Archive Conference Report scan/OCR witness; boundary, metadata, and OCR cleanup checked.
Collated word-by-word against the original scan.
Heavyweight pass: authoritative IA Conference Report source verified (conferencereport1908a); page-by-page collation against the scan/OCR witness (djvu lines 1521-2325) confirmed the talk boundary — immediately follows Anthon H. Lund's talk and the "AFTERNOON SESSION." header (opening the First Day Afternoon Session), and immediately precedes "ELDER JOHN HENRY SMITH." at line 2331. Removed session material that is not part of the talk body: the leading hymn ("O ye mountains high..."), the Patriarch Angus M. Cannon prayer, the second hymn ("O say, what is truth?"), and the session-resumption note at the start; and the trailing soprano-solo credit ("Oh Shining Light," Sister Clorinda Poulton) after "Amen." Confirmed the false-early running head "ELDER JOHN H. SMITH. 21" at line 2260 is page- header bleed from the next talk's typesetting, not a real boundary, and correctly left out of the body (Lyman's remarks continue unbroken across it). Corrected OCR misreads verbatim against the witness: "peoole"-> "people", "Saint*"->"Saints", "thetee"->"these", "•alone"->"alone", "unon"->"upon", "helm'"->"helm", "chiFdren"->"children", "neople"-> "people", "wards i ana"->"wards, and", "Latter-dav Saint"->"Latter-day Saint", "erive"->"give", "1 resident Toseph F. Smith"->"President Joseph F. Smith" (calling_at_time confirms Joseph F. Smith was Church President at this time), "onh'"->"only", "we sav"->"we say", "obligatior"-> "obligation", "upriedit"->"upright", "UDon"->"upon", and removed a stray print-ornament character ("■") with no textual content. No Word of Wisdom scripture (D&C 89) is directly quoted in this talk, only referenced by name, so no canonical cross-check was needed. Also closed two dropped spaces confirmed present in the witness itself ("soul,not"->"soul, not", "God,in"->"God, in"). Remaining minor print artifacts that match the witness exactly and do not affect meaning (a stray apostrophe in "them'" twice, ".in regard" with a stray leading period) were left as printed per the restraint principle.
This is a living critical edition. If you find a transcription, metadata, or sourcing error in this talk, report it to the editors →Reports are collated against the page scan and land as corrections in the vault.