Melchizedek brotherhood

• over 100,000 tithe payers on clay-tablet rolls

93:4.1The cer­e­monies of the Salem wor­ship were very sim­ple. Ev­ery per­son who signed or marked the clay-tablet rolls of the Mel­chiz­e­dek church com­mit­ted to mem­ory, and sub­scribed to, the fol­low­ing be­lief:

• members promised to proclaim good news to all men

93:4.43. I prom­ise to obey the seven com­mand­ments of Mel­chiz­e­dek and to tell the good news of this covenant with the Most High to all men.

• over 100,000 tithe payers on clay-tablet rolls

93:6.8Upon the con­sum­ma­tion of the solemn covenant, the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion be­tween Abra­ham and Mel­chiz­e­dek was com­plete. Abra­ham again as­sumed the civil and mil­i­tary lead­er­ship of the Salem colony, which at its height car­ried over one hun­dred thou­sand reg­u­lar tithe pay­ers on the rolls of the Mel­chiz­e­dek broth­er­hood. Abra­ham greatly im­proved the Salem tem­ple and pro­vided new tents for the en­tire school. He not only ex­tended the tithing sys­tem but also in­sti­tuted many im­proved meth­ods of con­duct­ing the busi­ness of the school, be­sides con­tribut­ing greatly to the bet­ter han­dling of the de­part­ment of mis­sion­ary pro­pa­ganda. He also did much to ef­fect im­prove­ment of the herds and the re­or­ga­ni­za­tion of the Salem dairy­ing projects. Abra­ham was a shrewd and ef­fi­cient busi­ness man, a wealthy man for his day; he was not overly pi­ous, but he was thor­oughly sin­cere, and he did be­lieve in Ma­chi­venta Mel­chiz­e­dek.

• nearly disappeared after Melchizedek’s departure

93:9.1It was a great trial for Abra­ham when Mel­chiz­e­dek so sud­denly dis­ap­peared. Al­though he had fully warned his fol­low­ers that he must some­time go as he had come, they were not rec­on­ciled to the loss of their won­der­ful leader. The great or­ga­ni­za­tion built up at Salem nearly dis­ap­peared, though the tra­di­tions of these days were what Moses built upon when he led the He­brew slaves out of Egypt.