Some background information here provides insight regarding the character of our Drapers. Phebe’s father, William Draper, Sr. seems to have been of a deeply religious nature as shown by a statement one-half century later, in the Deseret News, dated February 22, 1855:
“Being fond of the study of the scriptures and being convinced of the necessity of baptism for the remission of sins, he yielded to his convictions, and according to the best light he had then, was baptized a member of the Baptist Church.”
The Baptists rejected the doctrine of infant damnation for want of baptism. They espoused the doctrines of baptism by immersion, and formed the American Bible Study. These were the practices and doctrines which attracted William into the Baptist fold. But by 1833, religious liberty had suffered great curtailment even in the Baptist Church. Its membership had broken into many contending groups.
He had been a member for 15 years, and after being in full Baptist membership all this time, William “began to be faulted for believing that the scriptures were to be understood in accordance to their obvious purport and that the prophecies would be fulfilled and Israel gathered.”7 Since his beliefs differed from the orthodox beliefs of the church, he must look elsewhere for the truth.
