The martyrdom of a prophet:
It is winter 1844, and the Prophet Joseph
Smith is Lieutenant General of the Nauvoo
Legion, mayor of the city which has become
the largest and most flourishing in all of
Illinois, and revelator to the Saints. But
he is a man whose time is running out.
To Elizabeth Rollins he had confided in the spring
of 1844, “I must seal my testimony with
my blood." The testament is of no force, Paul
said, until the death of the testator. The
depth of that doctrine is beyond me—why
death should somehow be the full glorifying
sanction of life; why blood must be shed as
the price of freedom and of truth, and most
of all of the witness of Christ. But so it
is. Joseph taught that principle.
The brethren became anxious about his life,
so often did he express the sentiment that
they must carry on in his absence. Brigham
Young, for one, recalled: “I heard Joseph
say many a time, ‘I shall not live until
I am forty years of age.’” At another
time Brigham Young added, “Yet we all cherished
hopes that that would be a false prophecy,
and we should keep him for ever with us; we thought our faith would outreach it, but we were mistaken."
Wilford Woodruff, who conversed with the Prophet
just after April Conference 1844, recalled
that he later sent ten of the Twelve East
on a mission, and that the Prophet seemed
to linger in saying goodbye to him. Then,
looking him through and through, he said,
“Brother Woodruff, I want you to go, and
if you do not, you will die.” And he looked
“unspeakably sorrowful, as if weighed down
by a foreboding of something dreadful.”
On the other hand, because he had so often
escaped the vilifyings and the attacks of
his enemies, some believed that he was invincible.
In one sermon he said, in response, “Some
have supposed that Brother Joseph could not
die; but this is a mistake.” He added, “Having
now accomplished [my work], I have not at
present any lease of my life.
I am as liable now to die as other men.”
During that last winter he manifested four
dominant anxieties and did all in his power
to relieve them, as he had been commanded.
The first anxiety related to the temple. He
yearned for it to be finished. For example,
he with Hyrum went from house to house in
Nauvoo in the role, we would say now, of home
teachers, and recommitted the Saints to give
of time and means to the speedy erection of
that building. He himself gave sermons and
so did Hyrum. Hyrum said, “Great things
are to grow out of that house.” Joseph did
some of the physical work himself, quarrying
rock with his bare hands. Often he would ride
out on his horse, Old Charlie, sometimes accompanied
by his dog, Major, ride up on the hill, that
commanding eminence, to the temple site, longing
and praying that the Saints would be able
to complete it and receive the blessings to
be given therein before they were driven and
scattered. For he anticipated and prophesied
that they would be driven and scattered.
Joseph’s anxiety about the temple was compounded
by his anxiety concerning the records of the
Church, that they be kept, preserved, and
accurately transmitted. That was the responsibility
of several of his scribes. Six men were working
around the clock to bring the history up to
date. One of them was Willard Richards, a
loyal man who often burned candles until midnight,
writing with his quill pen. Joseph had said,
after a dream, “I told Phelps a dream that
the history must go ahead before anything
else.” To several others he spoke of the
necessity of accurate record-keeping, and
he lamented in a priesthood meeting with “deep
sorrow” that the Church had not kept adequate
minutes. He intimated that this was a matter
that could offend the Lord, since he had given
inspiration which they had not prized enough
to record. Then Joseph said, “Here let me
prophesy. The time will come when, if you
neglect to do this thing, you will fall by
the hands of unrighteous men.”
One might ask, Was it all that important?
And one can quickly answer: If all of the
Twelve then in Nauvoo had promptly recorded
the meeting in which Joseph rolled off the
responsibility from his shoulders upon them
and charged them, in what he called his last
charge, to go forward in building the kingdom,
any claim that he intended someone else to
succeed to the Presidency of the Church would
be completely refuted by contemporary documents.
But only one of the Twelve, Orson Hyde, recorded
that meeting at the time. Most of those present
didn’t say much about it until several years
later. Hence, although the charge that this
meeting was a convenient afterthought is a
false one, as a Church we would have been
invulnerable on this point if proper records
had been kept. They would have refuted any
possible claim that Joseph did not want the
President of the Twelve to succeed him.
Crucial? Yes.
In addition to the anxiety about records,
he had a concern to teach in summary all that
had thereto­fore been made known and to make
sure that the brethren understood it. To that
end he spent much of every day for three months
with the Twelve, with others of the Church
leaders, and also often in counsel with husbands
and wives, sharing, summarizing, reiterating
the established restored truth and ordinances.
As the record shows, he gave the higher 
  ordinances of the temple
even though the temple was not complete to certain of the more faithful and true in Nauvoo.
Thus we know of sixty to seventy couples in addition to the nine of whom I spoke
who received temple blessings in the upper
room over his store before the Nauvoo Temple
was completed. By now construction was far
along. The temple was, as some said, “up
to the square,” and the baptismal font then had been dedicated and was in use for baptisms for the dead.
To summarize thus far: temple anxiety, record
anxiety, teaching anxiety.
Finally there was the Prophet’s major concern—that
the Saints understand his role and be willing
to do what in an extremity they might be required
to do. Strangely, throughout the days of the
last of May and early June 1844 many who were associated with Joseph exhibited unusual optimism.
Among these was his brother Hyrum,
who seemed to feel, even down to the time
that they were in jail in Carthage, that everything
would work out, that this was just one more
of the many crises from which they had always
emerged. In radical contrast the Prophet had
for some time had all kinds of ominous presentiments.
Now we reach the crisis moment, the tinder
box and the trigger. In the Nauvoo period
some people’s attitudes were bitter. They
joined in league with the underworld. At this
time Nauvoo was the largest city in Illinois,
hence counterfeiters, blacklegs, bootleggers,
slave traders, gamblers, and every other disreputable
type of person found their way there, trying
to exploit the possibilities for dishonest
profits, trying to gull recent and sometimes
naive converts who had come from far and near.
As you walked the streets of Nauvoo it was
difficult to know who were the Saints and
who weren’t. Because of that underworld,
but worse still because of apostates living there who now hated the Church, the Prophet’s
life was placed in jeopardy.
William Law had first wept at the Prophet’s
announcement of the principle of plural marriage,
and with his arms around Joseph’s neck had
pleaded that he not teach it.
"For," said he, "if you won't, if only you won't, this will become the greatest Christian church of the century.
If you do, the consequences will be terrible." The Prophet, also in tears, replied,
"What you say may be true William, but I have no choice. I must teach it, I have been commanded,
and the Lord has told me that keys will be 
 turned against me if I do not."
How early did he know that plural marriage 
 would be restored?
At least as early as 1832. By
1842, ten years later, he had introduced it.
Over that William Law became bitter, and soon he was excommunicated (ironically) for adultery.
Then Law became so bitter that he attempted to organize his own church and began to fight back.
He and his brother,
Wilson, Chauncey and Francis Higbee, and Robert
and Charles Foster were the sextet responsible
for the publication on June 7, 1844, of the
first and only issue of the Nauvoo Expositor. The word expositor meaning expose sheet.
Written in the most intemperate language,
the Expositor vilified the Prophet.
It says,  “How shall he, who has
drunk of the poisonous draft, teach virtue?"
It says there has never been a worse dictator since Nero and Caligula. Etc.
You know the history, I will not dwell on the details.
The city council met. According
to their understanding of law, they decided
that the Expositor was, by their own charter, a public nuisance, and that they had the authority of the paper
not only to confiscate any remaining 
 copies but also to destroy the press.
Precisely that, by the way, is what happened to at Independence.
Some students of law today would argue that
they were perfectly within the law of the
times, that there were precedents for it,
and that the way they did it was indeed legal.
But both friends and enemies
of the Prophet now agree that the act, legal
or not, was unwise and inflammatory and was the major immediate factor that culminated in his death.
George Laub recorded the following: “Brother
Joseph called a meeting at his own house and
told us that God showed to him in an open
vision in daylight [meaning that this was
not something he had just conjured up in dreams of the night] that if he did not destroy that printing press.
The blood of the Saints would be shed. To prevent that, we did what we did."
No doubt, not all believed this.
He did not add then, which he could have,
that although he had by that act preserved
the Saints’ lives for a time, he had done
so at the cost of his own. Even before the
decision was made, the apostates had said publicly,
"If those Mormons raise their hand against this press, they can date their doom from that point."
They threatened much more than they ever did. Among their threats was were that there
wouldn’t be a stone
left on the temple, that they would burn all
of Nauvoo, that there would not be one Smith left in the state, and that the Mormons would be killed or driven.
This was indeed the crisis. The Prophet was twice acquitted, as were those charged with him.
That did not satisfy anyone [of his enemies].
Eventually Thomas Ford,
the governor of Illinois, pronounced himself
unsatisfied with those legal procedures and
insisted that the Prophet go to be tried in
the very hotbed of the cruelest opposition
in the state, Carthage. Why? Ford mentioned
it in his letter: to placate the masses. But
after they had surrendered themselves at Carthage,
the governor pledging to protect them, Joseph
and Hyrum were charged with treason, and bail
was set for Joseph and Hyrum and the thirteen
other defendants at [$7,500]. To his everlasting credit,
Stephen Markham sold his house instantly, put his family in a tent, and provided the money.
The enemies had felt that they had been met and had to figure out another way [to imprison Joseph].
They then swore out further charges and put the Smith brothers in jail.
May I now back up to some preparatory events
in the Prophet’s own inner life. In the
King Follett discourse (April 1844) he had
spoken of the great secret, the great and
glorious truth, both that God himself has
become what he is and that man, who is in
the image of God, may become like him. It
would help us with those to whom this seems
to be blasphemy if we worded it more carefully
than we usually do, if we said not “we believe
that God is like a man,” but rather, “God
is like Christ.” No genuine Christian could
be offended at that statement. But we must
go on to say “and as are God and his Christ,
so man may be.” That too has offended many.
The King Follett discourse, though we have
published it more than any of the Prophet’s
public utterances, still occasions some difficulty.
At the end of that discourse, he made the
now classic statement: “You don’t know
me; you never knew my heart. No man knows
my history. I cannot tell it; I shall never
undertake it.” The history of the Church
he wrote as he was involved in it, but much
of the biography of his inner world he kept
locked within his bosom.
Then he said: “When I am called by the trump of
the archangel and weighed in the balance,
you will all know me then. I add no more.
God bless you all. Amen.”
Many were saying then, as they had in Kirtland
and before, that here was a fallen prophet.
Occasionally, with a twinge of humor, he would say,
“Well, I had rather be a fallen true prophet than a false prophet."
In order to quell the disputes that were arising through the efforts of the Laws,
he was informed by two young men, both heroes in their own time—Dennison L. Harris and Robert Scott.
They were made privy to the meetings that the Laws were holding, and reported back what they heard.
After the last meeting they reported their expectation
that at that meeting everyone present would
be asked to come forward and take an oath
to be willing to take the life of Joseph Smith.
The Prophet wept. They had told him that they were going to that meeting and that they were afraid
there would be some such act, and he [the Prophet] had said to them,
"Brethren, they may threaten you, they may even take your lives, but brethren, if you have to die, die like men."
They went willingly, and they didn't have to.
He now knew by natural knowledge as well as by presentiments what was happening.
He can be described properly as he was by B. H. Roberts, as a man who “lived his life in crescendo.”
There was no diminuendo
in his life, but always increase. He gave
There was one last discourse. After
the Laws had prophesied that he would never
speak from the stand again, and though the
rain at the end shortened his talk, he delivered
a masterful discourse on the testimony he
had borne from the beginning that the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost are three 
 separate personages.
After that address he said he yearned to preach once more.
His subject would have been a passage out of John’s Revelation pertaining to our becoming kings and priests.
It was in crescendo, at the final moment 
 of his discourse he said,
“Brethren and sisters, love one another; love one another and be merciful to your enemies.”
Then came the moment, the discourse before
the Legion. Some of our historians have candidly
observed that this was Joseph Smith as a man;
this wasn’t really the Prophet, it was humanity
coming out. He stood “on the top of the
frame of a building,” the frame of the unfinished
Nauvoo House. Before the group, many of them
in uniform, he said, as he had twice before,
that now the moment had been reached when
“I will never tamely submit to the dominion
of cursed mobocracy.” He summarized how
he had been driven as a roe on the mountains
all his life, that his enemies had given him
no rest. When they took away his own rights,
he said, he would submit. When they took away
the rights of the Saints, he would fight for
them. Now he unsheathed his sword and said,
“I call God and angels to witness [what I have said]."
If his language on this occasion seems inflammatory,
one should read the journals of some of those
who were present. They speak of the Prophet
as “calm and deliberate.” They speak of
him as concerned in love for his brethren.
He did cry out at one point, “Will you stand
by me to the death?” and thousands shouted
“Aye!” He responded, “It is well.”
Then in a wave of assurance of his own soul
he said, “This people shall have their legal
rights, and be protected from mob violence,
or my blood shall be spilt upon the ground
like water.” And again, “I am willing
to sacrifice my life for your preservation.”
If we can understand what was inside of him
in love for his brethren, we will understand
why his soul was wounded to the core when
men came across the river at Montrose and
accused him of cowardice—said that, despite
his words about standing up for them, now
that trouble had come he was the first one
to run. That’s when he replied, “If my
life is of no value to my friends 
it is of none to myself.” That was when
the resolve was made to return. He had had
light in his decision to leave—“It is
clear to my mind what to do.” We can certainly
say that the death of the Prophet was brought
on by his enemies. Perhaps we must also say
that it was brought on by some of his friends.
After all that the Saints had received from
Joseph, there were some who at that stage
could not believe him when he said, “All
they want is Hyrum and myself. . . . They
will come here and search for us. Let them
search; they will not harm you . . . not even
a hair of your head. We will cross the river tonight, and go away to the West.” They could not believe it.
The pot was boiling. Reports were coming in every
hour telling of increasing numbers of men
who had come from Missouri to join the Illinois
mobs; the mobs that were being gathered, the
cannons they had available, the threats they
were making. In the midst of that flood of
evidence, Joseph’s statement, “You will
be safe,” could not be believed. More than
a hundred, Vilate Kimball wrote, had left
Nauvoo. Seeing them go, the Prophet said,
“Look at the cowards.” Now he himself
was called a coward. And against the light,
he came back. “The light he had was toward
the mountains.”
Porter Rockwell, when asked what he thought
should be done, replied to the Prophet in
a nineteenth-century phrase—“As you make
your bed, I will lie with you.” Said Joseph,
“Hyrum, you are the oldest, what shall we
do?” Hyrum answered, “Let us go back and
give ourselves up.” The Prophet, probably
thinking of the governor’s stern, uncompromising
letter, said, “If you go back I will go
with you, but we shall be butchered.” “No,
no,” said Hyrum, “let us go back and put
our trust in God, and we shall not be harmed.”
John Murdock, who watched them row back across
the river that day, later said that he felt
something in the air; that there was something
threatening about this situation. Hyrum’s
son, Joseph, felt it, and could never quite
speak of it for the rest of his life without weeping.
The two men’s wives, Emma Smith and Mary
Fielding Smith, were not quite so much concerned,
because so often their husbands had come back
from threatening circumstances, and they,
of course, did all they could to soothe them.
The Prophet would later write a letter to
Emma from the jail. It said in part: “It
is the duty of all men to protect their lives
and the lives of the household, whenever necessity
requires.” He wrote, “Should the last
extreme arrive,” then didn’t finish the
sentence.
They changed their clothing, and then received word from Jedediah M. Grant that they must leave early,
when they hadn't had any sleep for two nights, because the governor wanted them in Carthage by noon.
that meant a 6:00 a.m. departure at the latest.
There are little moments in those last hours
that are significant and poignantly memorable.
I mention only a few.
After the two brothers returned to surrender
state arms as ordered by the governor, Leonora
Taylor was in the Smith home when the Prophet
went again to say goodbye. He pleaded with
Emma on that occasion to go with him, even
though she did not want to risk getting the
ague, chills, and fevers. She was also expecting
a child (four months pregnant) and not feeling
well. He begged her to come anyway. She said
no. And as he turned away, he said, “Well,
if they don’t hang me I don’t care how
they kill me.”
It seems likely that Willard Richards overheard
that statement and that that is why, in the
last moments, he offered—and he meant it—to
be hanged in the Prophet’s stead. The Prophet’s
statement also tells us that he hadn’t yet
been made to know exactly how he would die.
There had been threats, one of them published
in the newspaper, that his enemies would,
as the letter said, “make catfish meat of
him.” How ruthless some of these men were!
They did it with slaves. They encouraged black
men to run away from their masters, and they
would sell them and pocket the money; then
have them run away again, and sell them and
pocket the money. They would tell the slave
that after the third time, when, as they said,
he was “hot,” they would share the money
and he would be free. Instead of that they
killed him, and cut him up and threw him in the Mississippi. That was making catfish meat of a man.
There was also the problem of a reward offered
by the Missourians. They had placed a price
on his head—they would pay a thousand dollars
for his delivery, as with John the Baptist, on a platter.
So he did not know how he would end his life,
but he did not relish—who among us would
have?—the thought of hanging.
There was a moment with Daniel H. Wells, not
yet a member of the Church, who was on a sickbed.
The Prophet stopped
to see him. “Squire Wells, I wish you to
cherish my memory, and not think me the worst
man in the world either.”
Daniel H. Wells could never speak of that incident without weeping. He became one of our great ones,
but he had to give up his family in order to join
the Church later.
Mary Ellen Kimball overheard the Prophet say,
as the group stopped to ask for a drink of
water on the way to Carthage that morning,
“Brother Rosenkranz, if I never see you
again, or if I never come back, remember that
I love you.” She felt that to her soul,
and fled and wept on her bed.
And then there was the pause the group made
at the temple, where the Prophet lovingly
surveyed that building, the city, the landscape,
and then said: “This is the loveliest place
and the best people under the heavens; little
do they know the trials that await them.”
On the road to Carthage the Prophet made some
revelatory expressions that are not part of
the official history. Isaac Haight recorded
that at one point Joseph was so weighed down
that he turned to Hyrum and said, “Brother
Hyrum, let us go back to Nauvoo, and all die
together.” Hyrum urged him on. When they
were several miles out from Nauvoo he instructed—and
that’s the only way he could get them to
do so—that many who had ridden that far
with him turn around and go back. They said, "No Joseph, we'll go with you. We'll take what you take."
"No," he said, "you must go."
John Lowe Buttler said, “As I turned and as we rode away I felt as I suppose the ancient disciples of Christ
felt when he said, ‘I must be crucified.’”
And then the third expression. They stopped
at the Fellows’ farm after being met by
a menacing group on horseback from Carthage,
and Joseph went in and countersigned Governor
Ford’s order for the surrender of all state
arms in possession of the Nauvoo Legion. “I
am not afraid to die,” he said. In the jail
the day before his death he said to his brethren:
“I have had a good deal of anxiety about
my safety since I left Nauvoo, which I never
had before when I was under arrest. I could
not help those feelings, and they have depressed me."
Once Joseph and Hyrum had been jailed, many
legal efforts were made in their behalf.
None of these availed. Dan Jones went and personally
talked to the governor, reporting the threats
to the Prophet’s life that he had heard
uttered in various groups of men now in Carthage.
The governor merely said, “Oh, my friend, you are imagining this."
We have the testimony of a non-Mormon,
Dr. Southwick, claimed that only two days
before this a meeting was held that included
a representative of every one of the United
States. The subject was the political campaign,
for Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon had been
named respectively as candidates for the Presidency
and Vice-Presidency of the United States.
There were reasons for this candidacy, one
of them being that it enabled five hundred
men from Nauvoo to dramatize and teach the
gospel in a way they could not otherwise do.
Joseph did not, of course, expect to be elected.
But now enough support was being generated,
and was showing up in the Eastern newspapers,
that men in the meeting meant to stop the
political career of Joseph Smith. The Missourians
present said, in effect, “If you want us
to do the job, we’ll do it.” And the others
said, “If Illinois and Missouri would join
together and kill him, they would not be brought
to justice for it. If you don’t stop him
this time, if he isn’t elected this time,
he will, or likely may, next time.” So in
this struggle there were political motives
as well as others.
The governor was surrounded by mobocrats,
and the Saints’ efforts with him failed.
John Taylor, a man of great character and
spine, saw the situation, was indignant, and
said, “Brother Joseph, you let me have a hundred men from the Nauvoo legion and I'll tear this jail down."
The Prophet said no.
Stephen Markham offered to change clothes with the
Prophet, to make a switch—the Prophet could
then get away on his horse and all would be
well. The Prophet turned that down. James
W. Woods was assigned to go to Jesse Thomas,
one of the circuit judges in Illinois, who
had assured the Prophet that if he would send
responsible Mormons to each community and
explain the actions of recent days the citizens
would be pacified. Woods was asked to check
further into this. He found that hope too
to be false, for Thomas and others said, in
his presence, “Don’t you think it’s
better for two or more men to die than for
a whole neighborhood to be in an uproar?”
Two or three of the Prophet’s non-Mormon
friends, one of them a sea captain and one
a dentist, were summoned to testify in his
behalf. All of them tried, none of them successfully.
After all these efforts, the only real thing
the Prophet had between him and the final
scene was a pistol which Cyrus Wheelock had
brought him. When Hyrum said, “I hate to
use such things or to see them used,” the Prophet replied,
“Neither do I, but we may need to defend ourselves."
Many anti-Mormon tracts have said that it
certainly is no example to the Christian world
that a man should be called a martyr for Christ
if he used a gun in his last hour. They do
not know either the background or the sequel.
The background, in a word, is that the Prophet
had promised those brethren in the name of
the Lord that he would defend them even if
it meant giving up his life. Had he been all
alone in the Carthage Jail, the story might
be different, but he was not. He was there
with two members of the Twelve, John Taylor
and Willard Richards—Willard Richards weighing
over three hundred pounds, the largest target
(and the only one who would not be injured)—and
with his brother Hyrum. He did defend them
as he had promised. In fact, we now know from
the records that the first man up the stairs
that day, anxious and eager, was met by a
fist and rolled back down. That fist was Joseph Smith's.
Inside the room they had nothing to defend
themselves with except two pistols, plus two
walking sticks which they used in an effort
to divert the rifles. Some of the balls went
off in the ceiling. When Jacob Hamblin and
James W. Woods visited the room shortly after
the martyrdom they counted the pockmarks of
the balls that were shot through the door
or doorway. There were [thirty-six]. According
to Willard Richards, all that shooting occurred
in less than two minutes. Both Hyrum and Joseph
received five balls; John Taylor, four. It
was a volley, an explosive volley.
The previous night, the Prophet had had some
private conversations. We know that he had
borne to the guards his last testimony of 
the Book of Mormon.
David Osborne had heard him say in 1837: “The
Book of Mormon is true, just what it purports
to be, and for this testimony I expect to
give an account in the day of judgment.”
We know also that earlier he had pleaded three
times with Hyrum for Hyrum to leave him and
go back. Hyrum could only say, “Joseph, I can’t leave you.” Hyrum, it turned out, was the first to be killed.
Only this much remains and I must be through. The question raised:
How did the Prophet make the decision to leave
that room, or to try to leave it, through
the window? Films depict Joseph falling off
balance out through a large glass plate window.
There is no such window. This was a jail.
Even the upstairs had walls as thick as two
feet. The window was small, and Joseph was
a large man, and for him to get through it
required considerable effort. Willard Richards
used the strangest adverb in his whole account
when he said that after emptying the pistol
(which misfired a couple of times) the Prophet
calmly turned from the door, dropped the pistol,
and went to the window. Calmly? It is difficult
to understand how anybody could have heard
the words in such a fracas, but one man, outside
the jail, claimed he heard the Prophet cry,
“Oh Lord, what shall I do?” How fast can
a man’s mind work in such circumstances?
What was going through his? It was certain
death at the door, that was clear. It was
certain death at the window, because balls
were coming through it, and John Taylor had
just been blasted under the bed, writhing
in pain with four wounds. Yet Joseph decided
to get out—hoping, Willard Richards believed,
that it might save the lives of his brethren.
Whether that was his intent or not, he was
hit from behind—twice, maybe three times—but
managed anyway to pull himself up and out,
and then fell from the window. “He’s leaped
the window!” someone shouted, and those
on the landing rushed downstairs and outside.
“Shoot him, — — — him, shoot
him!” said Levi Williams, and they shot
several times more. One account says that
the Prophet died with a smile. Perhaps he
was conscious long enough to know that the
promise he had made to Willard Richards had
been fulfilled: “Willard . . . you will
stand where the balls will fly around you
like hail and men will fall dead by your side,
and . . . there never shall a ball injure
you.” Perhaps he knew that John Taylor would
become the third prophet, seer, and revelator.
Elder Taylor would live long enough to write
a hymn, “Oh, Give Me Back My Prophet Dear,”
and would himself be twice “martyred,”
in a measure dying once at Carthage and recovering,
and then dying again in exile because he would
not compromise the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We return to the prophetic words of that last
hymn, “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief.”
It was, in the late days of Nauvoo, the Prophet’s
favorite, and it was the last music he heard
on earth. The final two lines are:
These deeds shall thy memorial be;
Fear not, thou didst them unto me.
For a time the Saints could not be comforted.
The mourning, the black miasmic depression
that descended upon Nauvoo was overwhelming.
When Mary Fielding Smith, Hyrum’s wife,
after midnight heard the high-pitched voice
of Porter Rockwell, riding on a sweaty horse,
shouting, “They’ve killed them! they’ve
killed Joseph and Hyrum!” she screamed.
And young Joseph wept. Soon all Nauvoo knew.
Some felt bitter and wanted vengeance. Some
who held command positions in the Nauvoo Legion
went immediately and asked that they be marshaled.
But the leaders had been told by the Prophet
to stay home. That was that.
Letters came to Nauvoo from both Willard Richards
and John Taylor. To reassure John Taylor’s
family, Elder Richards wrote, “Taylor’s
wounded, not very badly.” And peace prevailed
in spite of the anguish. Many of the brethren
absent on missions felt forebodings that day,
even at the hour of the martyrdom. Parley P. Pratt walked depressed across the prairie until he could hardly endure
it. Finally he knelt and prayed for comfort;
and then it was made known to him that the
newspaper headlines he had seen in Chicago
told the truth, that Joseph and Hyrum had
in fact given their lives for the Lord’s
cause, and that he was to go back rapidly
to Nauvoo and tell the Saints to do nothing
until the Twelve had reassembled.
Interestingly, only four days before, the Prophet had sent letters to all the Twelve asking them to return to Nauvoo.
Despite the provocation, then, peace and not
war came in the aftermath of the Prophet’s
death. With their Nauvoo Legion the Saints
had power to win in any skirmish had they
so chosen. But they who had been stereotyped
as warlike and bitter and hostile and filled
with vengeance demonstrated that they were
not any of those. They were peaceful.
And now by way of testimony.
I stood years ago with a Church History group
outside the walls
of the jail in Carthage. It was a dark day,
with lowering clouds and some rain. Standing
there we were taught in an inspired way the
details of the Prophet’s last days.
The Spirit that came upon me there, I pray,
will never be obliterated. I can summarize
it by saying that the spirit that testifies
to the souls of men that Jesus the Christ
is the Son of God and that he gave his life
willingly for the redemption of mankind is
the same spirit that bears witness to the
receptive soul that Joseph Smith was a prophet
of Jesus Christ. One cannot truly say he knows
the one thing and deny the other. No man can
come to a testimony of the prophetic mantle
of the Prophet Joseph Smith without knowing
that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the
Anointed One. And no man can have a testimony
that Christ is the divine Savior and Lord
without knowing, when he hears Joseph’s
name and knows even a little of his life,
that Christ had a prophet named Joseph Smith.
In bearing that testimony I add to it the
witness that we too, somehow, someday, must
reach the point at which we hold our physical
life cheap, or our eternal life dear, even
to the point of being willing to lay our life
down in the image and pattern of the Lord
Jesus Christ. “Blessed are ye,” said the
Lord to the Prophet early on, “even if they
do unto you even as they have done unto me,
. . . for you shall dwell with me in glory.”
In 1843 the Prophet recorded the Lord’s
words addressed to him: “I seal upon you
your exaltation, and prepare a throne for
you in the kingdom of my Father, with Abraham
your father.” In that same revelation, he is told that the Saints will not set upon him, but that, in the end,
they too will have mercy upon him. "For," says the Lord to them, "Let no man set upon my servant Joseph,
for he shall do the sacrifice which I required his hands."
I have wondered, if among the things achieved by his honest death, justly free and clear of his enemies,
he yet came back. I have wondered if among the things accomplished was his own final redemption.
If we do not know them now, each of us will
at some time come to know these twin truths:
Jesus is the Christ, and Joseph is his Prophet.
I bear this witness in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
