Elder Thomas L. Griffiths' Miraculous Scripture Memorization
Published October 13, 2026 at 6:11 AM
Contributed by
Millennial Star Research
After struggling for three months to learn scripture in South Africa, Elder Thomas L. Griffiths fasted and prayed for four days for divine help. Following this, he experienced a miraculous increase in his ability to learn, committing seventy-five passages to memory in three weeks and eventually hundreds more, earning him the nickname 'the Walking Bible.'
In Their Own Words
“I landed in South Africa, and for the first three months I was in a state of bewilderment. I had not been much of a student and did not know one passage of Scripture. I set to work, but found it extremely hard to learn. I studied and prayed, but I fear that I also doubted. Three months passed, and I had made very little headway. I then decided that I would have to rely entirely upon the Lord for help. I kept a season of fasting and prayer for four days that the Lord would help me. In three weeks from that time I had committed to memory seventy-five passages of Scripture, and shortly after I had learned five hundred, some of which consisted of nearly whole chapters. In time I came to be called the ‘Walking Bible.’”
— Thomas L. Griffiths, The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star
Sources & References
The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star (Manchester, later Liverpool, England, May 1840–1970), 12 October 1905 (Vol. 67, No. 41). https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_the-latter-day-saints-millennial-star_1905-10-12_67_41 (account extracted verbatim from the issue's Internet Archive OCR text; research confidence: high) Full first-person account: The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star, Vol. 67, No. 41, 12 October 1905, p. 653 https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_the-latter-day-saints-millennial-star_1905-10-12_67_41
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