Jesus and Joseph: History Repeating Itself

IMPROVEMENT ERA. YOL. m. AUGUST, 1900. No. 10 JESUS AND JOSEPH— HISTORY REPEATING ITSELR BY MAJOR RICHARD W. YOUNG, OF THE SUPREME COURT OF MANILA, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. "Mormonism" is a great, fortified city of refuge, many-sided, but everywhere impregnable to its enemies, and secure to its defenders. Walled about by sound doctrine, living faith, and perfect organization, and founded upon the rock of revelation, it may be expected forever to withstand the assaults of the unbelievers. It has been my object in this brief article, to point out anew the great and striking parallelism between the times, lives and missions of Jesus Christ and of Joseph Smith, thus, perchance, convincing some of the more timid of the besieged that this particular part of our defenses is sound. Prior to the coming of Christ and prior to the birth of Joseph ^mith, the voice of prophecy had not been heard for centuries; in the former case, not since the days of Malachi, in the latter, not since the days of John the Revelator, whose writings respectively ■close the Old and the New Testaments. In the days of the Savior, the Jewish church was split up into

722 IMPROVEMENT. ERA. a number of contending sects; in the time of Joseph Smith, Christianity was divided into hundreds of warring creeds. Christ was born in a stable, Joseph in a log cabin. Christ's paternal guardian was a village carpenter, Joseph's father, a small farmer; the parents of both were poor and lowly. Their associates were humble residents of the remote hamlets in which they lived. Both grew up unlettered. Christ's first appearance on his father's business was at the age of twelve, when he displayed an understanding which astounded the doctors of religion. Joseph Smith first learned of the business that the Almighty had planned for him, at the age of fourteen years, thereafter he displayed a comprehension of religious matters which aroused and astonished the sectarian ministers. But the active missions of both Jesus and Joseph were yet to be postponed for a number of years. * Christ announced himself as the son of the living God; Joseph Smith announced himself as a prophet of God. Jesus denounced those who sat in Moses' seat, as hypocrites, who were shutting up the Kingdom of God against men, as blind guides, who were neglecting the weightier matters of the law, as those who boasted that they would not have been partakers with their fathers in the blood of the prophets while themselves stoning and killing those sent to them; he repudiated their churches and set up his own. Joseph Smith's message to the world was, in part, that none of the sects were right, that their creeds were an abomination in the sight of the Lord, their professors corrupt, and that they were teaching for doctrine the commandments of men; he organized a new church. Jesus and Joseph were each accused of gross blasphemy, the former for declaring himself to be the Son of God, the latter for claiming to be a prophet of God. Both were the objects of the bitter and unrelenting scorn, hatred and persecution of the antagonized priests and ministers. Both were accused of treason; one, because he claimed to be in a spiritual sense the King of the Jews, and the other, because he taught that the Church founded by him was the Kingdom of God; though the former publicly advised that unto Caesar should be rendered the things of Csesar, and the latter, that

JESUS AND JOSEPH— HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF. 723 the Saints should uphold and sustain their respective governments until He came whose right it is to reign. Jesus and Joseph alike labored and found their converts almost exclusively among the poor and uneducated; both were rejected as cheap imposters by the scholars and aristocrats of their day. Christ chose as apostles the fisherman Peter and others equally humble ; Joseph Smith, the house-painter Brigham Young and others equally lowly. Christ sent his apostles to preach without purse or scrip, promising the gifts and blessings of the Spirit and the signs to them who should believe. Joseph Smith sent forth the twelve and the elders with a like message. Innumerable witnesses, worthy to be adjudged credible, since they underwent labors and sufferings in voluntary attestation of their sincerity, have borne solemn testimony that the signs have followed those who have believed the teachings of Christ and those who have believed the teachings of Joseph Smith. Christ and Joseph Smith both announced that their followers should be persecuted even to the grave; and, singularly enough, in the Roman empire this came true, where religious toleration was so marked as to lead Gibbon, the historian, to exclaim that the freedom of the city of Rome was extended to all the gods of mankind; and quite as remarkable, came true under the great modern Republic, whose Constitution provides for the protection of all persons in life and liberty and in the free exercise of religion. Christ foresaw and predicted his death ;Joseph Smith announced, on leaving Nauvoo for Carthage, where he was betrayed and killed, that he was going as a lamb to the slaughter, with a conscience free of offense toward God and toward all men. Christ was bebetrayed by the apostate Judas; Joseph Smith was harried to his death by apostate brethren.