--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Evans, John Henry collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 9 number: 2 published: 1905-12 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'John Henry Evans, "Genius or Seer?," *Improvement Era* 9, no. 2 (December 1905): 170–178.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0902unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0902unse start_page: 170 end_page: 178 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1905-12) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0902unse publication_year: 1905 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1905, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Genius or Seer? ' 168 IMPROVEMENT ERA. have been engaged in regulating the churches here, as the disci- ples here are numerous, and the Devil has made many attempts to overthrow them. It has been a serious job, but the Lord is with us, and we have overcome, and have all things regular. The work is breaking forth on the right hand and on the left, and there is a great call for elders in this place. We have received a letter from Oliver, dated Independence, Jackson county, Missouri, Janu- ary the 29th, 1831.* These are the words which he has written, saying: "My Dearly Beloved Brethren: After a considerable lengthy journey, I avail myself of the first opportunity of communicating to you a knowledge of our situation, that you may be privileged of writing to us, for we have not heard anything from you since we left you last fall. We arrived here a few days since, which is about twenty-five miles from the Shawney Indians, on the south side of the Kansas river at its mouth, and Delawares on the north. I have had two interviews with the chief of the Dela- wares, a very old and venerable looking man. After laying before him and eighteen or twenty of the council of that nation the truth, he said that he and they were very glad for what I, their brother, had told them, and they had received it in their hearts, etc. But how the matter will go with this tribe to me is uncertain; neither can I at present conclude much about it. The weather is quite severe, and the snow is considerable deep, which makes it at present quite difficult traveling about. I have but a short time to write to you, my beloved brethren, as the mail leaves this place in the morning, but I wish some of you to write to me immediately a full letter of all your affairs, and then I will write to you the situation ' of all the western tribes, etc. Thus reads most of the letter, saying to us: ' 'The God of my father Jacob be with you all. Amen. "I remain, in Christ, your brother forever, "Oliver." My Dearly Beloved Brother Hyrum: I have had much concern about you, but I always remember you in my prayers, calling upon * See Doctrine and Covenants, sees. 38: 8; 30: 5, 6; 32: 1-3 AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER OF THE PROPHET. 169 God to keep you safe, in spite of men or devils. I think you had better come into this country immediately, for the Lord has commanded us that we should call the elders of this Church to- gether unto this place as soon as possible.* March 4th. —This morning, after being called out of my bed in the night to go went and had an awful a small distance, I struggle with Satan; but, being armed with the power of God he was cast out, and the woman is clothed in her right mind. The Lord worketh wonders in this land. I want to see you all. May the grace of God be and abide with you all, even so. Amen. Your brother forever, Joseph Smith, Jr. P. S. — If you want to write Oliver, direct your letter to In- dependence, Jackson county, Missouri. Harrison and Orson Pratt arrived here on February 27th. They left our folks well. David Jackway has threatened to take father with a subpoena writ. In the spring you had better come to Fayette, and take father along with you. Come in a one-horse wagon if you can. Do not come through Buffalo, for they will lie in wait for you. God protect you. I am, Joseph. Addressed: Mr. Hyrum Smith, Harperville, Broom county, N. Y. * Doctrine and Covenants, sec. 37: 3. GENIUS OR SEER? BY JOHN HENRY EVANS, INSTRUCTOR IN CHURCH HISTORY, LATTER-DAY SAINTS' UNIVERSITY, AND AUTHOR OF " "one HUNDRED YEARS OF MORMONISM. I. Since there can be no reasonable doubt that, humanly speak- * ing,Joseph Smith was the founder of 'Mormonism, " and since men are to be estimated by what they say and what they do, it follows that this man was either a great, original genius or a heaven-inspired seer. Let us view Joseph Smith in the light re- flected by his work — "Mormonism, —but "^ only, however, so far as will enable us to ascertain the extent to which he possessed orig- inality; that is, the power of invention. It is a common belief in the world that the ' 'Mormon' proph- ' et was a plagiarist; in other words, that the Church he founded is not an original contribution to religion. The American Encyclo- pedia, for example, asserts that, ''to make up the religion of the 'Mormons,' Hebraism, Persian dualism, Brahminism, Buddhistic apotheosis of saints; Christianity, both in its orthodoxy and heter- odoxy; Mohammedanism, Druidism, Mesmerism, and Spirit-rapping ' have all contributed something. ' Admitting, for the sake of ar- gument, not indeed this shallow and self-contradictory statement, but such a modification of it as would appear reasonably true, let us see what light this would throw on the character of the Proph- et Joseph. Two things, though, must be made clear, before we may safely draw a conclusion from premises viewed from this stand- point. The first one is, that whatever the source of the separate GENIUS OR SEER? 171 parts of this religion may be, the resulting whole — "Mormonism" — a remarkable is unit. This is admitted by everyone who is fa- miliar with it, and who has viewed it through glasses uncolored by prejudice. * 'The organization of the 'Mormons, ' " declares Pro- fessor Ely, "is the most nearly perfect piece of social mechanism with which I have, in any way, come in contact, excepting alone ' the German army. ' This remark, of course, is the result of ob- servation from the view point of the political economist. But it would be equally true if made concerning the religious or the phil- ' osophical aspect of ' 'Mormonism. ' From whatever side it is looked at, this religious organization appears perfectly homogeneous. The other point that we must speak of before casting up re- sults is, that greatness does not consist alone in the power to create, as this word is commonly understood, but extends also to the power to organize the material already at hand. Indeed, it is doubtful whether any great man is original, "if we require," in Emerson's phrase, "the originality which consists in weaving, like a spider, his web from his own bowels; in finding clay, and making bricks, and building the house. ' ' He profits by the labors of others; he brings to bear upon the results of their toil an insight that can see to make improvement. "The hero is in the press of knights, and the thick of events, and,, seeing what men want, and sharing their desire, he adds the needful length of sight and of arm, to come at the desired point. The greatest genius is the most indebted man.'^ How much did Moses owe to "the learning of the Egyptians?" Darwin and Spencer to their predecessors? Shakes- peare to* the story-tellers that went before him? And our modern inventors to the toil of others? There is little enough that is new under the sun. Every age is mostly a reproduction of the pre- ceding one. All the literature of the world, if we avoid repeti- tion, might be put into a dozen quartos. An instance or two will make our meaning clear. We Eng- lish speaking people are fond of pointing to Shakespeare as the supreme master in literature, the prince of poets. This is per- fectly proper, and every civilized nation joins us in assigning him the first place in the literary Hall of Fame. But an examination of his plays will reveal the fact that, so far as matter is concerned, he probably owes more to his fellow-workmen, than does any other 172 IMPROVEMENT ERA. great writer. Hamlet's philosophy is in Montaigne's Essays, and most of the material and much of the phraseology of Henry VIII can be found in the Chronicles of Hollinshed. In the last play, for instance, according to Malone, "out of six thousand and forty- three lines, seventeen hundred and seventy-one were written by some author preceding Shakespeare; two thousand three hundred and seventy-three by him, on the foundation laid by his predeces- sors, and only one thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine were en- ' tirely his own. ' This investigation of Malone's hardly leaves a single drama of Shakespeare's absolute invention. Professor Wendell of Harvard University is wont to say that the great dram- atist's only original play, in the sense for which we are contending, is his worst —the Merry Wives of Windsor. Milton was no less dependent upon others for his material for Paradise Lost. The American Constitution, to go into another department of thought for an illustration, has little new in it, if we except the idea which places in the hands of the Supreme Court of the United States the power to nullify an act of Congress and that which pro- vides for the enforcing of the laws of the United States in the various states by the general government. And so we could multiply instances, but space forbids even our entering into the details of the cases cited. In view, therefore, of these two facts —that ''Mormonism" is admittedly an almost perfect organization, and that individual greatness does not consist alone in the creative imagination — it ought to be clear that the cry of plagiarist does not deprive the ''Mormon" Prophet of the claim to first-rate ability. The charge is a mere bagatelle raised by those who either cannot find any serious objection against the Church, or wish to provide a popular slogan. If all the constituents of this religion were separately traceable to sources outside of Joseph Smith, still the wonderful compound resulting from these would entitle this man to the qual- ity of greatness. As well might we refuse to call Shakespeare great because the material of his dramas can be traced to other sources than himself; or to Milton, because his marvelous epic can be found, in substance, in a few verses of Genesis and the Apoc- alypse; or to the framers of our Constitution, because this instru- ment is made up almost wholly of old ideas. — GENIUS OR SEER? 173 The fact of the matter is, pressed to its ultimate analysis, that this power of organizing and recasting material at hand is it- self a species of creation, since the product is something that did not exist before. Thus, not to vary our examples, Paradise Lost, though its germs lie in the Bible and probably in Caedmon's Para- phrases, is nevertheless something distinctly new; the plays of Shakespeare are undoubted products of a wonderful creative pow- er, notwithstanding this, that and the other idea can be traced to more or less definite sources; for, under the spell of this mighty magician those heaps of dead, chaotic material in Hollinshed and the rest, suddenly sprang up into living persons as real as any that you shake hands with in the world; and the American Docu- ment of Freedom still remains, in the words of Gladstone, the most wonderful thing ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man. So it is with "Mormonisra. " If it were pos- sible to say that this principle was taken from this source, and that doctrine from that source, the fact would still remain that the result of this combination is something entirely new in the world it did not exist in its present form before. The separate elements would have lost their former identity, and taken on a new shape; Joseph Smith's organizing genius would have wrought upon these constituent parts till he had produced a distinctly new religion. And the sum total of results is scarcely less original than it would be if the various elements of which his product is composed were absolutely new, and ''Mormonism," in this sense, becomes an original contribution to religion. II. But we do not wish to press this conclusion. There is anoth- er answer to the charge of plagiarism, and that is to deny it in the meaning which it is generally made to bear. We might, for instance, suggest a doubt that a young man in the frontier dis- trict, in the early nineteenth century, without either book-learning or the opportunity of acquiring it, could know well enough the history of religion. Heathen and Christian, to cull from each faith whatever ideas might produce, when arranged by him, such a re- ' ligion as 'Mormonism, ' not to speak of his anticipating cults that ' did not arise till after his day. We may safely leave this for the 174 IMPROVEMENT ERA. more important and practical business of calling attention to ideas which, so far as his generation is concerned, originated in Joseph Smith. Beyond all cavil, the biggest conception in "Mormonism"—its — working hypothesis is what is known among us as the eternal progression of man. This idea, briefly explained, is: Man, as to his spiritual essence, is an eternal being, capable of continuous and infinite progression; that is, he had no beginning, neither will he have an end. "The mind or the intelligence which man pos- ' sesses is co-equal with God. ' In other words, ' 'man exists upon the same principle" as does Deity. Moreover, 'God himself was once ' ' as we are now, and is an exalted man. The principle of eternal ' life, therefore— in so far as it is synonymous with 'knowing God" ' — lies in "going from one small degree to another; from a small capacity to a great; from grace to grace; from exaltation to ex- altation, until man attains to the resurrection of the dead, and is able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory, as do ' those who are enthroned in everlasting power. ' This means, of course, that man may go on increasing indefinitely in all those attributes which in this life we have learned to look upon as noble and permanently good, that he may continue the development of intellectual, moral, and spiritual power; that, in a word, he may become a God. In what a dignity does this conception apparel man! He is not, like the Chinaman, a stone in the civic wall; or a member of a non- transcendent caste, as in ancient Egypt and India; or a child of the state, like an enlightened Spartan of the time of Pericles; ' nor something better than the worm, ' though 'totally depraved, ' "a little lower than the angels," of our good neighbors who scout the idea of "Mormonism" —he is nothing less than a God in em- bryo! It would be interesting to pause here long enough to point out the difference between individuals and peoples who hold high notions concerning man, and individuals and peoples who do not. But this matter lies beyond our province in this article. Where did this idea come from? It certainly did not reach us through the channel of Heathenism. Did it come from any or all of the "Christian" sects by which Joseph Smith was surrounded? Ask those who to this very day turn away from the bare thought * GENIUS OR SEER? 175 as the acme of blasphemy, whose God becomes each year more etherial and impersonal, and whose most blissful anticipations respecting the hereafter are, to become a kind of celestial song bird. At all events, they could never, in the world or out of it, become like their God, for their God is bodiless and passionless, with a center nowhere, and a circumference everywhere. That we are not dealing humorously or flippantly with matter, (for indeed it is difficult to speak reverently of such a notion) is evident when one considers the views of God held by a man like Lyman Abbot, who is universally looked upon as one of the first "Christian" ministers of America. Surely, then, Joseph Smith did not levy any tax on Heathenism nor on modern Christianity for his ideas of man and God, and of the relationship which each sustains to the other. ' Take another principal idea in 'Mormonism, ' or rather a ' group of ideas that cluster very closely around this notion of man. According to Joseph Smith, this earth did not come into existence by reason of any accident, but its creation was part of Jehovah's fixed and definite plan for man's exaltation. It is only by being placed in these mortal and very material conditions that his prog- ress and unfolding will be insured. In other words, this earth is man's probation sphere, where he can be tried and perfected for a higher stage. Nor will the earth pass away as such. There is to be a resurrection of the body, very literal, as in the case of Jesus; after which our little planet will be made a fit habitation for immortal man. This earth is to be literally the inheritance of the meek; and here, after the resurrection, shall men increase in knowledge and power and dominion and glory forever. But this higher stage is not to be reached without effort on the part of man, is not to be enjoyed merely through the free grace of Christ; but it is necessary, after receiving this grace, to conform to every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Man, in other words, must live every day the life of a child of God on his way to exaltation. Such, very imperfectly expressed, are the objects which every good Latter-day Saint sets before him, and which are as real as anything he expects next year. Now where do these ideas come from? "From Heathenism," says the etherializing "Christian;" "and such a crass materialism could have come only from the lowest forms of Heathenism!" But — 176 IMPROVEMENT ERA. this statement shows how shallow are the investigations of those who make it, not only of "Mormonism, " but also of non-Christian religions; and it proves nothing respecting the origin of these doc- trines, except, indeed, that they did not originate in modem Chris- tianity. If we asked our critics to point out specifically which idea v/as derived from what creed, they would indicate Moham- med's faith as the source of Joseph Smith's ''material heaven." That there is a faint suggestion of the former in the latter, is un- deniable. But any one who is familiar with both conceptions of the hereafter will readily admit that there is little similarity, if any, between them; not to speak of the one originating in the other —which is our point here. Besides, there is not the remotest indication that the Prophet Joseph knew anything about Moham- medism at the time he first advanced these ideas. On the con- trary, the notion that he did is irreconcilable with what we know of his life. Incidentally, we might call attention to the very bold departure of Joseph Smith's ideas in general, and this one in par- ticular,from those that prevailed in the region where he lived from those, therefore, with which he was most familiar. — One other idea we must speak of that, namely, which is known among us as salvation for the dead. The Saints, in common with the Christian world, recognize the fact that only through the name of Jesus can salvation be obtained, that salvation is free to all of God's children, but that, to all appearances, only a compara- tively fewof them will secure that boon. Nevertheless, "Mor- monism" is not driven to the position where it must impeach the Divine Wisdom for creating man, and then of allowing him to over- turn His purposes respecting man's well-being, which results in the damnation of the great majority of the human race, or, at least in their non-salvation. According to the ''Mormon" doctrine, as announced by its first Prophet, all men, from Adam to the last, will have the opportunity of hearing the gospel and obeying it, if not "in the flesh," yet in the spirit world. At death, according to this idea, the spirit of man— the part of him that thinks and feels, that receives or rejects, that hears ixnd sees and wills— goes to the world of spirits where Christ is preached, and where every indi- vidual spirit has the power to obey or to disobey Him. But since baptism and other ordinances of the gospel, which cannot be per-