Chapter V. The Mother's Reminiscences of her Prophet Son

Her Graphic Description of the Home Circle. Joseph telling the story of the Ancients of America. Death of his Brother Alvin. Continuation of Joseph's Sketch.

" The ensuing evening, when the family were all together, Joseph made known to them all that he had communicated to his father in the field, and also of his finding the record, as well as what passed between him and the angel while he was at the place where the plates were deposited. Sitting up late that evening, in order to converse upon these things, together with over-exertion of mind, had much fatigued Joseph; and when Alvin observed it, he said, ' Now, brother, let us go to bed, and rise early in the morning, in order to finish our day's work at an early hour before sunset; then, if mother

will get our suppers ready early, we will have a fine long evening, and we will all sit down for the purpose of listening to you while you tell us the great things which God has revealed to you.'

"Accordingly, by sunset the next day we were all seated, and Joseph commenced telling us the great and glorious things which God had manifested to him ; but before proceeding, he charged us not to mention out of the family that which he was about to say to us, as the world was so wicked that when they came to a knowledge of these things they would try to take our lives ; and that when we should obtain the plates, our names would be cast out as evil by all people. Hence the necessity of suppressing these things as much as possible, until the time should come for them to go forth to the world.

" After giving us this charge, he proceeded to relate further particulars concerning the work which he was appointed to do, and we received them joyfully, never mentioning them except among ourselves, agreeable to the instructions which we had received from him.

" From this time Joseph continued to receive instructions from the Lord, and we continued to get the children together every evening, for the purpose of listening while he gave us a relation of the same. I presume our family presented an aspect as singular as any that ever lived upon the face of the earth — all seated in a circle, — father, mother, sons and daughters, and giving the most profound attention to a boy, eighteen years of age, who had never read the Bible through in his life : he seemed much less

inclined to the perusal of books than any of the rest of our children, but far more given to meditation and deep study.

" We were now confirmed in the opinion that God was about to bring to light something upon which we could stay our minds, or that would give us a more perfect knowledge of the plan of salvation." * * *

She also tells a touching story of the death of Alvin, which is appropriately incorporated here, in that it contains Alvin's dying charge to Joseph:

" On the 15th of Nov., 1824, Alvin was taken very sick with bilious colic. His father went immediately for a physician who, when he arrived, administered a dose of calomel, which lodged in the stomach, and baffled the skill of four other physicians, who were subsequently called. After some exertion on their part to carry the calomel off, Alvin told them that it was still lodged in the same place, and that it must take his life. On coming to this conclusion he called for all of the children and gave them his parting exhortation. * * When he came to Joseph, he said, ' I am now going to die. * * I want you to do everything in your power to obtain the record. Be faithful in receiving instruction, and in keeping every commandment that is given you. * * And always be kind to father and mother.' "

Alvin shortly after died. " A vast concourse of people," continues his mother, " attended his obsequies, who seemed very anxious to show their sympathy for us in our bereavement."

The following, also told by his mother, shows

how strictly Joseph obeyed the injunction to join neither of the sects, and how his mind was illumined concerning the Scriptures :

" Shortly after the death of Alvin, a man commenced laboring in the neighborhood, to effect a union of the different churches, in order that all might be agreed, and thus worship God with one heart and one mind.

"This seemed about right to me, and I felt much inclined to join in with them ; in fact, the most of the family appeared quite disposed to unite with their numbers ; but Joseph, from the first, utterly refused even to attend their meetings, saying, ' Mother, I do not wish to prevent your going to meeting, or any of the rest of the family, or your joining any church you please ; but, do not ask me to join them. I can take my Bible, and go into the woods, and learn more in two hours, than you can learn at meeting in two years, if you should go all of the time.' "

With these reminiscences may properly be incorporated Joseph's own brief sketch of his life from this point up to the obtaining of the plates in 1827; after which opens the regular historic period of the Latter-day Work.

"Accordingly as I had been commanded," says Joseph, " I went at the end of each year, [to the hill Cumorah] and at each time I found the same messenger there, and received instruction and intelligence from him at each of our interviews respecting what the Lord was going to do, and how and in what manner his kingdom was to be conducted in the last days."

At these conferences between Joseph and the angel was outlined the grand design of the immortals concerning the Latter-day Kingdom of God; and there has been so much correspondence between the after facts and those original designs that even the skeptical investigator must be struck thereby. Show to us an intricate and wonderful piece of mechanism, and we scarcely need the inventor's testimony that he and his genius — he and the angel of his invention — have had many a nightvigil at their work. So do fifty-seven years of connected facts sufficiently testify that Joseph and Moroni have made a very circumstantial record in modern times.

Not in all the spiritual history of the race is there anything more dramatically striking than these yearly visits of Joseph to Moroni. Picture these two on Mount Cumorah; remember it was the hour of earth's spiritual midnight, and only one angel on the watch. Then compare that awful but auspicious moment with the present, — when hosts of angels of some class or other are up and doing in every land. And how strikingly parallel to that watch which the wise men and angels kept in the East, on the night when the star of Messiah appeared, was that watch which was kept by Joseph and the angel, when first shot athwart the midnight of the age the star of the latter-days.