Excerpts from Birthright Blessings: Genealogical Training Class Sunday School Lessons (1942)

Note that these excerpts below exclude any racist ideas that existed in the LDS Church in the past  prior to 1978. I discuss this in my post: Disclaimer Regarding The Utah Genealogical Society & "Mormon Israelism". My intention in posting these excerpts below is thus not to meant to promote every idea in this book, but to show the past history of Mormonism and how they used to speak very positively of the Indo-Europeans. I think one can find value in some of this Pro-European content while rejecting anything that is problematic. My excerpts below exclude any false  ideas on race that even the LDS Church rejects nowadays. 

I present this as interesting LDS history. I think it shows how Mormonism acted as a quasi-ethnic identity, a tribe or a People, among the first Mormon converts: who were mostly of European descent, which I discuss here. 

These excerpts help us understand how early Mormons formed a tight nit tribal identity based on the belief that they were "American Israelites": which led to their growth and flourishing because in the first hundred years they were mostly all European (composed of those of British, German and Scandinavian descent). Since then, the LDS Church has expanded to a more global church with a more multiracial membership. The current LDS teachings, that reject any form of racism, reflect this change to a more global church. 

The following are excerpts from Birthright Blessings: Genealogical Training Class Sunday School Lessons (1942):

Lesson 1 

... We were among these choice and worthy spirits, selected to come to earth at this crucial time in the world's history to perform a special mission. Our heritage is the best in all the world; we come through a glorious lineage of noble men and women of highest character; and blessed are we because of our lineage. 

Life has come down to us through generations of patriarchs and prophets of ancient Israel; through valiant spirits during the dark ages who adhered at the cost of life to the principles they believed; through dauntless souls ever in the forefront of discovery, exploration and colonization; through kings and rulers, powerful warriors and nobles and law-givers; and through numerous folk of lesser worldly rank—honest God-fearing men and women, each of whom rendered his measure of service and sacrifice in his own day and generation. We never need to apologize for our earthly fathers and mothers, for we came to earth through an honorable parentage.

... "Therefore, thus saith the Lord unto you, with whom the Priesthood hath continued through the lineage of your fathers.—For ye are lawful heirs, according to the flesh, and have been hid from the world with Christ in God.—Therefore your life and the Priesthood have remained, and must needs remain through you and your lineage until the restoration of all things spoken by the mouths of all the holy prophets since the world began. Therefore, blessed are ye if ye continue in my goodness, a light unto the Gentiles, and through this priesthood, a savior unto my people Israel. The Lord hath said it. Amen." (Doc. & Coc. 86:8-11.) 

Children of the Covenant. The Lord in modern revelation has told us that we are "the children of Israel, and of the seed of Abraham."— (Doc. & Cov. 103:17.) Spirits were assigned to be born into the chosen family of Israel because of their faithfulness in the pre-existent life that on earth they might be a nation of ministers to keep alive in all the world a knowledge of God and the Gospel. ...

... Said Elder Orson F. Whitney, on this subject of our lineage and mission:

"You are among the chosen spirits that constitute the house of Israel. You are of the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and consequently heirs to all the promises made to your great progenitors. You are of Ephraim, most of you—Eph-raim, 'the first born,' the first branch of the Israelitish race to bear the fruits of faith and obedience in modern days. Your lineage is noble— ..."

Lesson 2:

It is of great importance for every Latter-day Saint to know his true lineage, and what blessings come to him by virtue of his birthright. ...

... Abraham's Posterity to Bear the Priesthood. But to Abraham, preeminently faithful and obedient all his days, the Lord made a sacred covenant and promise that through him and his seed after him (that is to say the literal seed, or the seed of the body) this right of bearing the Priesthood should continue, and by its authority they should carry the blessings of the Gospel unto all nations. (Abr. 2:9-11.) 

Who are the children of Abraham, in the world today, who hold the birthright to the Priesthood? In Lesson 1 was quoted the word of the Lord to the members of His Church: "For ye are the children of Israel, and of the seed of Abraham." (Doc. & Cov. 103:17.)

... By Right of Lineage. Long ago the great prophet Isaiah, looking forward to our day, exclaimed in the fervor of prophecy: "Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion!" (Isa. 52:1.) 

In March, 1838, Elias Higbee asked what Isaiah meant in this passage, and what people he had reference to. By revelation the answer came through the Prophet: 

"He had reference to those whom God should call in the last days, who should hold the power of Priesthood to bring again Zion and the redemption of Israel; and to put on her strength is to put on the authority of the Priesthood, which she (Zion) has a right to by lineage." (Doc. & Gov. 113:7-8.)

Lesson 3:

Patriarchs. "An Evangelist is a Patriarch, even the oldest man of the blood of Joseph or of the seed of Abraham. Wherever the Church of Christ is established in the earth, there should be a Patriarch for the benefit of the posterity of the Saints, as it was with Jacob in giving his patriarchal blessing unto his sons." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 151.) 

... Declaration of Lineage. The patriarch is also authorized to declare the lineage of the person being blessed, naming the tribe of Israel from which he derives. An examination of blessings shows that the great majority of those Church members blessed have been declared to be of the house and lineage of Ephraim.

Examples of Patriarchal Blessings. 

Here are a few typical excerpts from the blessings given by the first patriarch, Joseph Smith, Sr.: 

'God has had his eye on thee from all eternity. Thou hast a claim on the Priesthood and its powers. Thou art of the house and lineage of Joseph, the son of Jacob; thy descent is through the loins of Ephraim."

God has designed thee for a mighty man in this generation. * * * Thy posterity shall be blessed. Yea, thy children shall be received into the covenant from generation to generation. Thou art a descendant of Abraham; thou and thy children shall be blessed with the blessing of the Patriarch Joseph, the son of Jacob." ... Thou art of the pure blood of Joseph, through the loins and lineage of Ephraim. ... Thou shalt have posterity and thy seed shall be very numerous; they shall all be mighty men in the earth: they shall be kings and priests unto God and the Lamb, and they shall have an inheritance in Zion. ...

Patriarchal Blessings Are Sacred. ... Your blessing is in reality a revelation of the Lord to you, personally, ...

Lesson 6:

By the overruling power of God a mighty modern miracle has been performed. A new nation of Israel is being formed in this new land from select members of various races and peoples, in such a remarkable way that virtually every family among us has ancestral roots reaching into the various countries of Europe. 

A few examples of this may be cited. Take for instance, the pedigree of W . Henry Chace. His father, born in the South, comes from the well-known and numerous New England family of Chase, which came early in the seventeenth century from England. His mother is of mixed Spanish and Irish descent. His father's mother was a Zewadski, scion of the Polish nobility. 

Practically every Mormon congregation is made up of persons descended from nearly all northern 

European nationalities. ...

Colonists from Various Countries of Europe. During the process of the colonization of North America each European country sent its nationals here. Some came as outcasts, fleeing religious persecution at home and seeking here in America freedom to worship. Others were political refugees. Still others were alert and vigorous seekers of new opportunities and high adventure. Many typical Mormon pedigrees have one branch tracing down to the South, another to New England; one line links up with the Dutch and German and Swiss founders of New York and Pennsylvania; another with the hardy Norse of Scandinavia; and still another with the cavaliers of Virginia or the Puritans of Boston through their offshoots in Maine or New Hampshire or Vermont. The tide of population rolled westward, mingling together into one common bloodstream these diverse elements, forming a new and more virile race, possessing the noblest qualities of the parent peoples. 

Nor was the resulting admixture composed of European elements only. Literally thousands of Latter-day Saint families have one or more lines tracing back to Indian progenitors. One searcher, President A. Merlin Steed of the San Fernando Stake presidency, always had an intense interest in the Indians, but never suspected he himself was of that lineage until he began tracing his ancestors, when he discovered that he had not just one but many lines linking him up with Chief Massasoit and the New England tribes which met arid welcomed the Pilgrims. ...

... Each of us has sprung from the whole mass: they were all the veritable ancestors of every one of us; we are each vitally related to them all, each directly descended from them all. * * * We are of them, and their blood circulates in our veins." ...

The Design of God. This is not solely the result of chance. Through it can be seen the working out of the design of God. "And it shall come to pass that the righteous shall be gathered out from among all nations, and shall come to Zion." (Doc. & Cov. 45:71.) 

Who are these children of many peoples gathered into the fold of the Church? 

Of the House of Israel. An interesting answer is given by President Brigham Young. 

"It is the House of Israel we are after, and we care not whether they come from the east, the west, the north, or the south; from China, Russia, England, California, North or South America, or some other locality; and it is the very lad on whom Father Jacob laid his hands that will save the House of Israel. The Book of Mormon came to Ephraim, for Joseph Smith was a pure Ephraimite."

"Israel is dispersed among all the nations of the earth; the blood of Ephraim is mixed with the blood of all the earth. Abraham's seed is mingled with the rebellious seed through the whole world of mankind."

"We are now gathering the children of Abraham who have come through the loins of Joseph and his sons, more especially through Ephraim, whose children are mixed among all the nations of the earth."

"Ephraim has become mixed with all the nations of the earth, and it is Ephraim that is gathering together. It is Ephraim that I have been searching for all the days of my preaching, and that is the blood which ran in my veins when I embraced the Gospel." (Journal of Discourses, pp. 493, 669, 670.) 

Primary Purpose of this Modern Gathering. Such a world-wide movement must have a worldwide purpose. Someone once presented to the Prophet as he came to the stand this question: "What was the object of gathering the Jews, or the people of God in any age of the world?" His reply was direct and clear. 

"The main object was to build unto the Lord a house whereby He could reveal unto His people the ordinances of His house and the glories of His kingdom, and teach the people the way of salvation; for there are certain ordinances and principles that, when they are taught and practiced, must be done in a place or house built for that purpose. * * * It is for the same purpose that God gathers together His children in the last day, to build unto the Lord a house to prepare them for the ordinances and endowments, washings, and anointings, etc." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 308:)