--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 21 number: 2 published: 1917-12 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations, \"Editors’ Table,\" *Improvement Era* 21, no. 2 (December 1917): 167–171." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2102unse 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: improvementera2102unse start_page: 167 end_page: 171 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1917-12) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2102unse publication_year: 1917 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 1917, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Editors’ Table Who was Joseph Smith? He was the Prophet of the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times, Son of Joseph Smith and Lucy Mack Smith, born in Sharon, Windsor county, Vermont, December 23, 1805; received his first vision in the spring of 1820, in which he beheld God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ; obtained the plates of the Book of Mormon, under direction of the angel Moroni, September 22, 1827; was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood by John the Bap- tist, May 15, 1829, and soon thereafter, to the Melchizedek Priest- hood, by the ancient apostles, Peter, James and John; published the Book of Mormon, which he had previously translated from the plates by the means of Urim and Thummim, and the power and inspiration of God, early in 1830; organized the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by revelation of God, April 6, 1830; established the British Mission in 1837, founded Nauvoo in 1839, and gathered thousands of the Saints; preached the Gospel; received at various times, from 1823 to 1844, the revela- tions of the Lord for the building up of the Church, which are found in the Doctrine and Covenants, and, at last, having laid the secure foundations of God's "marvelous work and a wonder," sealed the testimony of his mission and labors with his blood, in Carthage jail, June 27, 1844, where he and his brother Hyrum, the patriarch, were brutally murdered by a mob. Previous to his assassination he said: "I am going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer's morning; I have a conscience void of offense towards God, and towards all men. I shall die innocent, and it shall yet — be said of me he was murdered in cold blood." The scriptural counsel that made him wise: "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him" (James 1:5). Further Answers By President Joseph F. Smith "To me, there is a sweet fascination in the contemplation of his childhood and youth. I love to contemplate the innocence 168 IMPROVEMENT ERA and the artless simplicity of his boyhood. It bears record that he was honest, that he was led by the Spirit of God to perform his wonderful mission. How could a child at his age be im- pelled by other than honest motives in the accomplishment of his high and holy calling? What he did he was led to do by the inspiration and guidance of his heavenly Father, of this I feel assured. "He was much like other children; his play was like that of his companions; his thoughts, like those of most children, were innocent, and consequently he was incapable of the knavery and connivance that his enemies declared he practiced. Though poor, his parents were honest and good; they delighted in the truth, and it was their honest desire to live according to the best light within them. Love and good will to all found expression in their hearts and actions, and their children were imbued with like sentiments. They were firm believers in God, and trusted in his watchcare over his children. They had frequently received manifestations of his loving kindness, in dreams, visions, and inspirations, and God had healed their little ones, in answer to prayer, when they were nigh unto death. It was in such an atmosphere, that the boy was reared. Joseph was a remarkably quiet and well-disposed child who gave his parents little or no trouble. As early as the age of eight, he gave proof that besides being thoughtful, easily governed, and of sweet and loving dis- position, he possessed the foundation principles of a good char- — acter filial affection, patience, endurance, courage. "Concerning his spiritual manifestations, is it reasonable to suppose that there could have been premeditated deceit on the part of the boy, and such a boy, in his simple statement of what he saw and heard? No; neither could the answer which the heavenly messenger gave to him, have been composed in the child's own mind. Joseph Smith's testimony concerning his heavenly manifestations, in later life, was as simple, straight- forward, plain, and true, as it had been in childhood; the fidel- ity, courage, and love, implanted in and characteristic of his life in boyhood, neither faltered nor changed with maturity. His wisdom came in revelations of God to him. "One marked illustration of his character, was his love for children. He never saw a child but he desired to take it up and bless it, and many he did so bless, taking them in his arms and upon his knee. I have myself sat upon his knee. He was so fond of children that he would go far out of his way to speak to a little one, which is to me a striking characteristic of true manhood. He had a like true love for the human race. I know, and have known from my childhood, that he was a prophet of God, and I believe in his divine mission with all my heart; and in the authenticity and inspiration of the revelations which he EDITORS' TABLE 169 received, and the Book of Mormon which he was instrumental in bringing forth." By Orson F. Whitney, of the Council of the Twelve "Whatever may be said or thought by others, I affirm that the mind which could grasp such splendid and exalted princi- ples, as Joseph Smith the Prophet grasped and revealed, and utter them in a manner so powerful, was essentially a literary mind, the mind of a prophet and a poet, than whom none mightier, save the very Son of God, ever struck the harp of truth and made it vibrant to the music of the spheres. "What poem did Joseph Smith produce?' He produced the great poem called 'Mormonism,' the grandest and sublimest epic ever conceived and brought forth by the mind of man. The highest concepts of former poets and prophets are but parts of his concept, mere chapters of his book; even as the dispensation in which they figured were but tributary to this greatest of dis- pensations, over which he presides. They are the rivers to his ocean, the forerunners to his fulfilment. And yet, he was not the great fulfilment. He stands upon the shoulders of former prophets and sees farther than any of the earlier seers. But above and beyond all is Christ, the Creator, the divine Author of this divinest of poems which, sounded as a prophecy in pre- existent spheres, finds its fullest human expression, in the heav- en-inspired song sung by the Prophet of the Last Dispensation." By Josiah Qnincy (Class of 1821, Harvard College) Mr. Quincy visited Nauvoo, in May, 1844. His impressions of the Prophet Joseph Smith are published in the book, Figures of the Past, Robert Bros., Boston, 1884. He says: "It is by no means improbable that some future text book, for the use of generations yet unborn, will contain a question something like this What historical American of the nineteenth : century has exerted the most powerful influence upon the desti- nies of his countrymen? And it is by no means impossible that the answer to that interrogatory may be thus written: Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet. And the reply, absurd as it doubt- less seems to most men now living, may be an obvious common- place to their descendants. History deals in surprises and para- doxes craite as startling as this. The man who established a re- ligion in this age of free debate, who was and is today accepted bv hundreds of thousands as a direct emissary from the Most — High, such a rare human being is not to be disposed of by pelting his memory with unsavory epithets. Fanatic, impostor, charlatan, he may have been: but these hard names furnish no 170 IMPROVEMENT ERA solution to the problem he presents to us. Fanatics and im- postors are living and dying every day, and their memory is buried with them; but the wonderful influence which this founder of a religion exerted and still exerts throws him into relief before us, not as a rogue to be criminated, but as a phe- nomenon to be explained. The most vital questions Americans are asking each other today have to do with this man and what he has left us." "A fine-looking man is what the passer-by would instinc- tively have murmured upon meeting the remarkable individual who has fashioned the mould which was to shape the feelings of so many thousands of his fellow-mortals. But Smith was more than this, and one could not resist the impression that capacity and resource were natural to his stalwart person. I have already mentioned the resemblance he bore to Elisha R. Potter, of Rhode Island, whom I met in Washington in 1826. The likeness was not such as would be recognized in a picture, but rather one that would be felt in a grave emergency. Of all men I have met, these two seemed best endowed with that kingly faculty which directs, as by intrinsic right, the feeble or confused souls who are looking for guidance." "Joseph Smith recognized the curse and iniquity of slavery, though he opposed the methods of the Abolitionists. His plan was for the nation to pay for the slaves from the sale of public lands. 'Congress,' he said, 'should be compelled to take this course, by petitions from all parts of the country; but the peti- tioners must disclaim all alliance with those who would disturb the rights of property recognized by the Constitution and foment insurrection.' It may be worth while to remark that Smith's plan was publicly advocated, eleven years later, by one who has mixed so much practical shrewdness with his lofty philosophy. In 1855, when men's minds had been moved to their depths on the question of slavery, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emer- son declared that it should be met in accordance 'with the in- terest of the South and with the settled conscience of the North. It is not really a great task, a great fight for this country to ac- complish, to buy that property of the planter, as the British nation bought the West Indian slaves.' He further says that the 'United States will be brought to give every inch of their public lands for a purpose like this.' We, who can look back upon the terrible cost of the fratricidal war which put an end to slavery, now say that such a solution of the difficulty would have been worthy a Christian statesman. But if the retired scholar was in advance of his time when he advocated this disposition of the public property in 1855, what shall I say of the political and religious leader who had committed himself in print, as well as in conversation, to the same course in 1844? If the atmosphere EDITORS' TABLE 171 of men's opinions was stirred by such a proposition when the war-clouds were discernible in the sky, was it not a statesmanlike word, eleven years earlier, when the heavens looked tranquil and beneficent? "Born in the lowest ranks of poverty, without book-learn- ing," * * * * Joseph Smith "had made himself at the age of thirty-nine a power on earth. Of the multitudinous family of Smith, from Adam down (Adam of the 'Wealth of Nations,' I mean), none had so won human hearts and shaped human lives as this Joseph. His influence, whether for good or for evil, is potent to-day, and the end is not yet. "I have endeavored to give you the details of my visit to the Mormon Prophet, with absolute accuracy. If the reader does not know just what to make of Joseph Smith, I cannot help him out of his difficulty. I myself stand helpless before the puzzle." By James E. Talmage, of the Council of the Twelve "The names that live longest as titles of distinction are of men whose message to the world is in a manner new, whose mission is specific and distinctive, and whose commission bears the seal of authority. The man of whom we speak, Joseph Smith, the restorer of the Gospel of Christ, in the latter days; the man through whom was opened the latest dispensation in the work — of the Lord, a dispensation called new, though characterized by the restoration of the authority and powers of all preceding — epochs, this man is one whom men cannot forget or ignore, try as they may. His place in history is secure; his work is recog- nized as that of a mission delegated to him alone. There is but this answer to the greatest question of the age: Joseph Smith was truly the prophet of the Most High God."