Eliza R. Snow's Spiritual Gift of Prophecy - Discernment and Divine Communication

Eliza R. Snow (1804–1887) — poet, sister of Lorenzo Snow, second Relief Society general president, and one of the most prominent women of the Restoration — possessed and exercised the spiritual gift of prophecy throughout her ministry. Joseph Smith told her, as she later testified, that the Relief Society was organized to bring women back to the position they occupied before the Fall, when "the same Laws were given to Men and Women both." She taught plainly that spiritual gifts — including prophecy — belonged to women as fully as to men.

Speaking to the Bountiful Relief Society on June 16, 1874, she reminded the sisters of the gifts the Saints had enjoyed in the early days of the Church: "in the early days of this Church the young would speak in tongues and would prophesy, but now days they say they are to[o] young — I say they are not."

Her gift was not merely a matter of teaching. Contemporaries regarded her as a prophetess, and the Discourses of Eliza R. Snow (Church Historian's Press) document her ministry of blessing, healing, and discernment across the settlements of Utah — she traveled thousands of miles visiting every Relief Society, blessing the sick by the laying on of hands, and speaking by what those present recognized as the Spirit of prophecy. Even a prophecy concerning her, delivered years earlier by Joseph Smith, was visibly fulfilled: when she visited with American Indians, some of whom called her "Mother," it fulfilled a prophecy Joseph Smith had made about her years before. Latter-day Saints saw in her life a demonstration that, as she taught, the gifts of the Gospel are for women as well as men.