Joseph Smith and the Advent of “Mormonism”

IMPROVEMENT ERA. Vol. XV. DECEMBER, 1911 No. 2 Joseph Smith and the Advent of "Mormonism."* BY LEVI EDGAR YOUNG, M.A. The restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the nineteenth century is the greatest event of this age. It came about in a very natural way, just as God ordained it, and which to man himself is reasonable and clear, when looked at honestly and with a purity of heart. Christianity today, as the Latter-day Saints interpret it, is called by the world "Mormonism." Therefore, I gladly use the term in this paper. The word today is fraught with great meaning. "Mormonism" is not only a religion. It is a great scientific and philosophic interpretation of life. In time it is to become the measuring rod of all thought, not dogmatically, not intolerantly, but broadly and intellectually, morally and sincerely. No religion or world institution demands more of man today than does "Mormonism." And only those who have pierced the realms of higher thought, can get a glimpse of its grandeur. It is the truly educated who will see "Mormonism" in its true light. It is the man and woman who have developed within themselves the power to think, to act, and to appreciate all the higher things of life, and the great and eternal questions of man. Not in one generation can man rise to the sublime heights of "Mormonism." It will take many ages. We are but making the beginning, and the beginning is always fraaght with many dangers, *A lecture delivered before the Utah Genealogical Society, April 6, 1911.

100 IMPROVEMENT ERA and all kinds of struggles. This is why we must learn, more and more, to live by faith, pursuing the great lines laid down by God in all our thoughts and actions. The first principles of the gospel will always remain intact, but the great and glorious truths of the world and nature will be ferreted out as man studies and works, and becomes the master of his own being and nature's laws. "Mormonism" calls for the onward march of man. It takes a stand upon a higher level than humanity has reached, and holds a out the hand of fellowship to all. It beckons the race on, because of its light and glory within. It recognizes man; "splendid, and sorrowful, inscrutable man." "Mormonism" sees man's proud brow, his bold lustrous eyes "aglow with light of fearless, world- conceiving thought"; of his mighty power that is destined to lift him in time to the throne of a God. For man is marching boldly ahead, forward and upward, bent on mastering the secrets of heav- en and earth. His eye is on the great celestial light of heaven. II. Christianity had been in existence some eighteen hundred years. The world of civilized powers had recognized Christ to be the model character of history. Within Christianity had grown all sorts of systems and creeds, dogmas and notions. Man had always been a religious creature, but religion solved no problems for him. This is proved by the dissensions in the eighteenth century, when the French, German, and English Deists were denouncing the Christian church, and were asking for a solution of the world's social, political, and industrial problems. The eight- eenth century was the dawn of the Age of Freedom in its true sense. In that century came forth the God-inspired Constitution of the United States, the greatest document of its kind ever given to man. In that age there were new interpretations of life put forward; men began to solve the problems of nature and the daily life. There was agnosticism on one hand, and religion on the other. As the French Deists condemned the creeds, they grew faster, and by the beginning of the nineteenth century, Christ was being interpreted in a thousand different ways. And yet the Christian world maintains that Christianity is an absolute religion. True, there had been great and good men who gave us many interpreta- tions of truth pertaining to the gospel of Christ. George Fox, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the noble and beautiful character,

JOSEPH SMITH AND THE ADVENT OP "MORMONISM" 10.1 John Wesley, all contributed great thoughts to the world's onward march. In the world, Christian institutions were going on, but with the absence of the Christian life. In fact, Voltaire was right in his stand that the "purest unbelief could accomplish what the formal belief of the day was trying to bring about." No one was living, nor did live, until the advent of Joseph Smith, to give to the world a thorough-going belief in Christianity, which would revolu- tionize the conduct of men. In reviewing the Christian world, we find that its promise had little to do with its performance. Hu- manity was thrown back to torture and ruin, as men are thrown back by the Christian world of today. A close study of the con- ditions of the time, just before the advent of "Mormonism," indicates that the need of the world was not more institutions of Christianity, but more real Christianity. The power of Christian- ity had been lost. Then again, the world had too long believed in the expediency of repentance. Repentance had become illogical, because it was supposed to be only necessary on the spur of the moment and when a man was face to face with death. As to faith in God, man had no faith, and God had become a "gaseous vertebrate," a non-entity. The French Revolutionists had announced what the world was fast accepting: "There is no God but Reason." And so the God of Reason supplanted the true and living God of Israel. What the world needed, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was God. Not God in the heavens and in the past alone; but God today and here with us as men. What the apostles of Christ knew, the world needed to know at first hand. It was a time when solid, scholarly, substantial scientific thought should take hold of the knowledge of God, and build towards him and the Savior of of the world. Some one has warned us: "Beware when God lets loose a prophet." And God let loose a prophet! III. The restoration of the gospel of Christ came at a new epoch of the world's history. The United States had been established as a great and powerful nation, a nation which gave example to the world of religious and political liberty. Old world ideas were given up. A new and big, broad country was fast filling up with the best

102 IMPROVEMENT ERA bone and sinew of European nations. People were nocking to the shores of America, and looking to the divine Constitution of the United States as a source of hope and life. The age of invention was to dawn. The hardy pioneer was to force his way into the west. Fundamental laws and principles of future American life were fast being formed. With the new age came new hopes; with the new nation came a new people. No other land could have been the home of the restored gospel. The United States was the type of nation that the world had never seen before. It had been established by the best thought and manhood of the race. Emerson truly said: "We live in a new and exceptional age. America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of the Divine Providence in behalf of the human race." One hundred years ago, the Abbe Genty, a distinguished French schohr of that time, published an essay on the "Result of the Discovery of America by Europe." He closes his paper by saying: "The Independence of the Anglo Americans is the event most likely to accelerate the revolution which is to renew the happi- ness of the world. In the bosom of this new nation are the true treasures which are to renew the world." He names the relief to crowded Europe as one of the blessings that is to come to mankind, the emancipation of slaves, the end of conquest, a universal peace, and the conversion of the world to Christianity*. This new nation, brought about by the directive force and power of God, says to all: "You are a child of God. Here is the world of God. Enter. We will do our best. There shall be no king. There shall be no subject. There shall be no master. There shall be no slave." And this lesson is the eternal lesson of today. "It is not gold, nor silver, nor brass, nor lead, nor iron, which will bring the eternal peace. It is truth, honor, and justice. It is Faith, Hope, and Love. It is on the virtues of mankind, upon the freedom of mankind, and the gospel of Jesus Christ that the future of mankind is to be builded." Our Puritan fathers, when landing on the bleak New England shore, in 1620, had announced to all future posterity that through the divine Grace of God should this country live. Their compact read: *From E. E. Hale's, Lecture on the American Revolution.

.J0SF1M1 SMITH AND TDK ADVENT OF "MORMONISM" 103 "In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are here under- written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc., having undertaken for the glory of God, and the advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one another, cove- nant and combine ourselves into a civic body politic for the better order- ing and preservation, and in furtherance of the ends aforesaid ; and by virtue thereof to enact, constitute, and frame just and equal laws, ordi- nances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the eleventh of November, in the year of the reign of our sovereign Lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini 1620." The United States has been a blessed land from the beginning, and is the soil where the preparation for the restoration of Chris- tianity took place. It is as the Abby Genty said, the country "where the conversion of the world to Christianity will take place." IV. It is not my purpose to trace for you the life of Joseph Smith. You know his life's work full well. I simply wish to analyze briefly his character. No man of our day has been more misunderstood. His name has been held "for good and evil," throughout the world. In childhood, Joseph Smith was a dreamer. His thoughts were often sent into the great worlds beyond. And it is the dream- er who really contributes to the race's betterment. The child's soul in its first innocence sympathized with the sublime in nature, and with the deep mysteries of Holy Writ. Joseph's soul was one of greatness. We read in history of how men have had the power to make great mental grasps of situations. Some have known the world and the workings of nature from the first. Some men live who do more thinking in a clay than the average un-trained mind does in a life time. The boy Joseph's mind was naturally strong. His brain, early subjected to great concentration, drew from its own rich stores a crowd of images, wonderful for their reality and their vigor. He was a thinker along the lines of mysticism. What great mind is not? His senses were endowed with a per- fection which gave them exquisite delicacy. He longed for a knowledge of the meaning of life, and the relationship of his own

104 IMPROVEMENT ERA soul to his God. Thousands of men in history have wished for the same knowledge, but have gone at the solution of the problem in their own way, and have plodded on till death, when they were no doubt given the key in heaven. But Joseph, using his mental faculties, and reasoning, and reasoning logically, went honestly to his Father and asked for light. And the light came. The results of Joseph Smith's prayer in the woods, on that Spring morning in 1820, have been mightily far reaching, and the claim that he was visited by God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ is one of the most startling statements in the world's history. People have laughed it to scorn; and psychologists have designated it as a peculiar hypnotic state of mind. And yet the boy gave the statement candidly and fearlessly to the world, and lived the com- mon life of man. To think of there being angels and a God in the form of man! Terrible in the estimation of some moderns. Yet it is only a few days ago, when a famous book of the age, called The World of Life, made its appearance, and the state- ments therein are startling the world of science. The work is by Alfred Russel Wallace, a contemporary and friend of Charles Darwin. Mr. Wallace has reached his eighty-eighth year, and now in the evening of life, closes his great work by saying: "Some such conception seems to me to be in harmony with the universal teaching of nature, everywhere an almost infinite variety, not as a detailed design, but as a foreseen result of the constitution of the universe. The vast whole is, therefore, a manifestation of his powers— perhaps of his very self — but by the agency of his ministering angels, through many descending grades of intelligence and power. "It is when we look upon man as being here for the very best purpose of developing diversity and individuality, to be further advanced in a future life, that we see more clearly the whole object of our earth life as a preparation for it. In this world we have the maximum of diversity produced, with a potential capacity for individual educa- bility. In the spirit world, death will not cut short the period of educational advancement. The best conditions and opportunities will be afforded for continuous progress to a higher status, while all the diver- sities produced here will lead to an infinite variety, charm, and use that could have been brought about in no other way." And what has our Prophet-teacher said, as far back as 1843? "Whatever principles of intelligence we attain unto in this life, will rise with us in the resurrection; "And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come."

JOSEPH SMITH AND THE ADVENT OF "MORMONISM" 105 Emerson has said, in his essay on Intelligence, that the hardest task in the world is to think. Now Joseph Smith was a thinking boy, and became an educated man in the true sense of the term. He had a mental grasp of great things. He knew nature's laws, and the "Mormon"people have never had a greater advocate of the reading of books, and the development of the intellect. As founder of the University of Nauvoo, he directed its policy, and it was opened for the purpose of bringing the youth of those early days in contact with what is most vital to their welfare, mentally, morally, and physically. Every epoch-making mind, it has been said, is at the same time child and father, disciple and master, of his age. So it was with the boy prophet. He was the child of all the good of the past, he was to become, through work and study, and the divine call of God, a father to an age which, for mental, moral and spiritual development, will eclipse all the ages of the past. The one great fact that impresses the world in the life of Jos- eph Smith was his sincerity. It is Carlyle who says again and again that "sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the first characteristic of all men in any way heroic." This is a truth of transcendent importance, and one that must be taken and believed in by the race. For sincerity of purpose means honesty of heart, and the honest heart is open to the conviction of truth. But it is not in the "Mormon" prophet's sincerity that one finds his greater manhood. It is in his magnificent contribution to the world's onward march that makes him the hero of the nineteenth century. His was a critical, intellectual type of mind. This is shown in his analysis of the ethical condition of the race, as well as the wrongs starking among the society of the day. He was an iconoclast, however, only as he <;ould substitute a much better thought for the one he opposed. His keenness of intellect permeated all the phases of modern thought. He understood the relationship of man to God; he knew men's hearts and desires as a psychologist does; he understood the intricate workings of the government of the United States; he built schools and had in mind a splendid school system; he was a linguist of no mean ability; and with it all, his was a practical and all-absorbing intellect whose great ideal was to reach out for the infinite. Now as to the advent of "Mormonism" and its significance. It is a distinctly new force in the onward march of mankind! It

106 IMPROVEMENT ERA is to be and is now the embodiment of all truth and all future intellectual development. It begins with nature and builds upon the greal natural laws in the physical world. Its philosophic and religious teachings do no1 lie upon beaten paths of formalism and insincerity, but in the secret recesses of the soul. It has the mes- sage that true religion docs not lie in forms and ceremonies, but in the soul and in life. It stands for the highest of ethical equity; its justice is an ideal justice "transformed by reason into moral force;" its conception of life resonant with the great calls made on man for the betterment of the race. It is to be preached as the gospel of salvation, preserving as it does the absolute fundamentals taught by the Redeemer of the World, for the divine preservation of the race. Its effort is to arouse the world, to open its eyes to the divine truth of God; and to have man give up his false ideals and wrong interpretation of life. It revolts against crime and hypocritical society, and asks for a rejuvenation of the race along the lines laid down by Christ himself. It stands for truth and freedom. It stands for individuality and progressiveness, along those lines which will be learned by the better manhood of the race, and which, when learned, will be put into the practice of the daily life. Coming as it did, in the nineteenth century, it entered the world at a time when the true Reformation in history was about to dawn. "Mormonism" will take the great thoughts of the nine- teenth and twentieth centuries, and all the ages to come, and, molding them into great truths of life, practical life, will be the greatest of all creative and reforming forces in the world of human- ity. Mexico's National Election was held on Sunday, October 1 Electors were chosen who are favorable to Francisco I. Madero who was nominated for the presidency by the Progressive Party August 28. These met October IS, and announced the election of Madero, the leader of the revolution, as president of Mexico. There was scarcely any opposition to Madero as candidate. He was endorsed also by the Catholic party. General Bernardo Reyes, the only strong competitor, left the country secretly, and in disguise, before the election, wiring to President De La Barra that he did so for the good of his country, but he said in interviews that he had discovered Maderist plots for his assassination. Severe fighting between factions was reported from various parts, and bandits were guilty of manv atrocities, particularly in the state of Chiapas.