---
title: Times and Seasons
description: Issues of 1844 to 1845.
authors:
  - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
editors:
  - Ebenezer Robinson
  - Don Carlos Smith
  - Smith, Joseph, Jr.
  - Taylor, John
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - newspaper
  - times-and-seasons
  - nauvoo
  - nineteenth-century
periodical: Times and Seasons
volume: 5
number: 24
published: 1845-01-01
publisher: E. Robinson and D. C. Smith; later John Taylor
publisher_place: Commerce and Nauvoo, Illinois
language: en
type: article
reference: "“The Answer,” *Times and Seasons* 5, no. 24 (January 1, 1845): 757–761."
printed_title: THE ANSWER.
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1845-01-01_5_24
  transcription: Text from the Centerplace.org transcription (https://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v5n24.htm), with its page breaks; this Internet Archive scan is the reference copy (its OCR was used only as a witness for OCR repair)
  identifier: per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1845-01-01_5_24
start_page: 757
end_page: 761
curator_note: A Mormon newspaper published by the church in Nauvoo; included for historical study. Inclusion does not imply endorsement.
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1845 (Nauvoo, Illinois); published before 1931, so public domain in the United States
  source: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1845-01-01_5_24
  publication_year: 1845
---

# The Answer

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Nauvoo, Ill., Dec. 25, 1844.

Remembered Brother William Smith:

Up to the reception of your excellent letter to me, (dated at Bordentown, N. J., Nov., 10, 1844, which you had the goodness to communicate through the columns of the "Prophet,") since we have been members together in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I think it may be said we have been one in faith, one in love, and one in friendship, and like the often used key, we have grown brighter and brighter, as we have performed the great service of opening and shutting the "lock" on religious understanding. As Jeremiah said, so say I: "The heritage of the Lord is like a lion in the forest; yea, the heritage of the Lord is like a speckled bird:" every body is afraid, and every body is pecking at us. It is a great thing to be a messenger of salvation, and so I will begin to answer your questions.

You ask; "why is it that the saints of the last times, can have no rest!" and I answer, because the world loves darkness rather than light, and their deeds are evil. "popularity" now and ever, since the serpent was cursed to crawl upon his belly through the loss of his feet, is, has been, and will be, the best kind of religion in use. Talk about holiness, morality, temperance, humanity, brotherly kindness and charity among the refined polite nations of the world; why, ever since Cain built a city for the ungodly to revel in, for the polygamy of a Lamech; for the droving of a Jabul; for the music saloon of a Jubul; and for the brass and iron foundry, and bogus machine of a Tubal Cain, the majority of mankind, have made money their faith; popularity their works, and persecution their sincerest devotion of moral greatness.

They that live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution, says Paul; and so it is-and it always comes first from him that professes godliness: Cain was a sectarian and could not admit revelation and hear God say: "well, Abel I have accepted thine offering:" and so he killed his brother because the devil slyly whispered in his ear:-it is blasphemy to talk with God.

Now the next generation could discover the wickedness of Cain, and the holiness of Abel, but the same evil spirit whispered that was in a day when revelation was necessary, but there is no need of it now, and it is done away. We have followed the rules and regulations of those good men, and O! if we had lived in their days, they should not have been killed! but as for this fellow he is "unpopular;" he blasphemes our God: he ought to die, but we being compassionate and charitable, and feeling a warm desire for the great cause of religion, will advise him to quit his folly, or delusion [delusion]; and if he dont [don't], we will punish him a little by stripes, sword, dungeons, or banishment; and then if he does not stop, we will stop him!

O Lord God Almighty, when the prison doors of Tophet, hell, and the horrible pit are unlocked; and the entrance into outer darkness opened, to bring the damned before the bar of the Judge of all the earth for the final judgment, I think some few christians in company with their father Cain and cousins of "popular" priesthood, from that day down to the judgment trumpet, will "grin horribly a ghastly smile'-YES, we killed the prophets and persecuted the saints, because they were not "popular." Then your question will be answered.

As to the "crime, time, and place, &c., of finding the Nephite record," its revelation is the very thing that produces an earthquake to this generation. It explains the bible: it opens the vision of the prophets; it unravels the mystery who first settled this country, and it shows the old paths wherein if a man walk he shall live. It copes with the boasted knowledge of the world; it glitters through the combined fog of ages; shows that God who eat [ate] of a calf with Abraham, will eat and drink again on the earth with his saints, when the wolf and the lamb, and the lion and the ox, will be as friendly as the saints and seraphs, in the full fruition of bliss; it cuts the gordian knot of priestcraft, and reveals the priesthood of the Son of God which is "without beginning days or end of years;" whereby it shows that prophets were ordained in eternity, when the "morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy:" and it speaks from the dead, whereby the living can hear from their friends, who have fought the good fight of faith, and passed from life unto death, and from death unto life! and Stevens [Stephens] with his incidents of travels in Central America; and others who are opening the bowels of the earth, and rolling "ruins' into being; and tend thousand elders of Israel filled with the Holy Ghost, declaring the everlasting gospel with irresistable [irresistible] power and economy, that surpasses understanding; the great persecutions and murders which are dealt out without measure to its believers; and the distress of nations and the

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signs that Jesus Christ said should be, like the sound of many waters, or of a great thunder, declare that it is eternal truth! and that your brother Joseph Smith was one of the Lord's anointed! That he now sits with God in the heavens, and laughs at the calamities that will speedily wrap the world in wo! and that he will mock when their fear seizes the last hope of a crude existence!

Joseph Smith was a Captain General and this world will be introduced to him as such, when the epitaph of its great men's greatness will be written within and without on the gates of the lower prisons, and entrance into outer darkness: "we were, and are not, and yet are!"

But I must not go to preaching to an apostle as I know you are, lest I enter into the rich treasure of knowledge too, and cause you to exclaim:-cast not thy precious jewels to strangers, lest greediness and covetousness seize them and they like the avaricious steward, with his goose that laid a golden egg a day, kill her in order to obtain the whole litter at once, and so destroy the fountain!

Mormonism is the wonder of this world, and the great leveling machine of creeds, constitutions, kingdoms, countries, divisions, notions, notorieties [notoriety's] and novelties; and praise it, talk about it, lie about it, exalt it, degrade it, blow at it, sneer at it, fear it, love it, hate it, persecute it, or laugh at it, still it is Mormonism, true as heaven, powerful as Jesus, eternal as element, going on conquering and to conquer!

Have the mightiest men on earth reared monuments of grandeur? of glory? of splendor? of fame? of utility? or of admirations?-Joseph Smith has exceeded all their wisdom and greatness. He has brought back the past and rolled up the future, whereby the past, present, and future, exhibit their images like the skies over the ocean.

Mormonism! O Mormonism! Nimrod, Homer, Pharoah, Cadmus, Alexander, Nebuchadnezzar, Holofornes, Herod, Bonaparte, and an immense retinue of other dignitaries, who have burst into being with pomp and glory, and made a trembling world wonder at their cruelty and cunning:-Where are the pillars, the records, and the approvals of heaven, of all your greatness?

"A heap of dust alone remains of thee,

'Tis all thou art and all the proud shall be,"

while Mormonism, from an Abel, though dead, yet speaketh; from an Elijah though translated in a fiery chariot to heaven, yet, returns in glory with Moses, and blesses Jesus at the transfiguration on the mount! O Mormonism! Thy father is God, thy mother is the Queen of heaven, and so thy whole history, from eternity to eternity, is the laws, ordinances and truth of the "Gods"-embracing the simple plan of salvation, sanctification, death, resurrection, glorification and exaltation of man, from infancy to age, from age to eternity, from simplicity to sublimity: from faith, repentance, baptism, reception of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, to washing, anointing, holy conversation, baptism for the dead, to the presence of angels, the general assembly and church of the first born; to the unspeakable glory of seeing God and the Lamb, and to spirits of just men, made perfect, and to be ordained unto eternal life!

And again, we exclaim, O Mormonism! No wonder that Lucifer, son of the morning, the next heir to Jesus Christ, our eldest brother, should fight so hard against his brethren; he lost the glory, the honor, power, and dominion of a God: and the knowledge, spirit, authority and keys of the priesthood of the son of God.

Christ kept his first estate-Lucifer lost his by offering to save men in their sins on the honor of a God, or on his father's honor.-Christ hated sin, and loved righteousness, therefore he was anointed with holy oil in heaven, and crowned in the midst of brothers and sisters, while his mother stood with approving virtue, and smiled upon a Son that kept the faith as the heir of all things! In fact the Jews thought so much of his coronation among Gods and Goddesses; Kings and Queens of heaven, that they broke over all restraints and actually began to worship the "Queen of heaven," according to Jeremiah.

Well, now, Brother William, when the house of Israel begin to come into the glorious mysteries of the kingdom, and find that Jesus Christ, whose goings forth, as the prophets said, have been from of old, from eternity: and that eternity, agreeably to the records found in the catacombs of Egypt, has been going on in this system, (not this world) almost two thousand five hundred and fifty five millions of years: and to know at the same time, that deists, geologists and others are trying to prove that matter must have existed hundreds of thousands of years;-it almost tempts the flesh to fly to God, or muster faith like Enoch to be translated and see and know as we are seen and known!

O Mormonism! no wonder the earth groans with the blood of thy martyrs! But there is one sweet consolation: death hath power on a saint, but once! the righteous rise triumphant over death, hell, and the grave! The wicked, thanks be to God, have to go through the agonies of the grim monster, twice! and the "second

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death," will be long enough, excruciating enough, and woful [woeful] enough, to satisfy the "uttermost farthing" for murdering the Lord's anointed! and the punishment still is eternal.

But I must begin to talk about Nauvoo, for I think I have said enough to prove the "mystery," whether the perishing philosophy of the age credit it, or not; so you may set me down as a living monument of Mormonism, and with the Twelve, there will then be thirteen united saints, bearing this testimony to the world that God, man, and Mormonism, are not only material, but eternal, and therefore, like Jesus, when martyred they come to life again.

I shall not describe the localities of Nauvoo, now, because I shall not have room; but as to the facilities, tranquilities [tranquillity's], and virtues of the city, they are not equalled [equaled] on the globe. The saints, since Sidney, the great "Anti-Christ" of the last days and his sons of 'Sceva,' have left Nauvoo, together with some other Simon Maguses, or foolish virgins, and wicked men who had crept in to revel on the bliss of Jehovah, have gone also, peace, union and harmony prevail.

I speak advisedly when I say Nauvoo is the best place in the world. No vice is meant to be tolerated: no grog shops allowed: nor would we have any trouble, if it were not for our lenity in suffering the world, as I shall call them, to come in and trade and enjoy our society as they say: which thing has made us the only trouble of late. These pretended friends, too frequently like old Baalam's girls, when let in among the young men of Israel, find admirers, and break the ordinances of the city, and then "Phineas' javelin," touches the heart.

The temple is up as high as the caps of the pilasters, and it looks majestic, and especially to me, when I know that the tithing, "the mites of the poor," thus speaks of the glory of God. All the description that is necessary to give you now, is that this splendid model of Mormon grandeur, exhibits thirty hewn stone pilasters which cost about $3,000 apiece.-The base is a crescent new moon: the capitols, near fifty feet high, the sun, with a human face in bold relief, about two and a half feet broad, ornamented with rays of light and waves, surmounted by two hands holding two trumpets. It is always too much trouble to describe an unfinished building. The inside work is now going forward as fast as possible. When the whole structure is completed it will cost some five or six hundred thousand dollars; and as Captain Brown of Tobasco, near the ruins of Palenque, said, "it will look the nearest like the splendid remains of antiquity in Central America of any thing he had seen, though not half so large."

The temple is erected from white limestone, wrought in a superior style: is 128 by 88 feet square; near 60 feet high: two stories in the clear, and two half stories in the recesses over the arches; four tiers of windows; two gothic and two round. The two great stories will each have two pulpits, one at teach end; to accommodate the Melchisedek [Melchizedek] and Aaronic priesthoods; graded into four rising seats: the first for the president of the elders, and his two counsellors [counselors]; the second for the president of the high priesthood and his two counsellors [counselors]; the third for the Melchisedek [Melchizedek] president and his two counsellors [counselors], and the fourth for the president over the whole church, (the first president) and his two counsellors [counselors]. This highest seat is where the scribes and pharisees used to crowd in "to Moses' seat" The Aaronic pulpit at the other end the same.

The fount in the basement story is for the baptism of the living, for health, for remission of sin, and for the salvation of the dead, as was the case in Solomon's temple, and all temples that God commands to be built. You know I am no Gentile, and of course, do not believe that a monastery, cathedral, chapel, or meeting house erected by the notions and calculations of men, has any more sanction from God than any common house in Babylon.

The steeple of our temple will be high enough to answer for a tower:-between 100 and 200 feet high. But I have said enough about the temple; when finished it will show more wealth, more art, more science, more revelation, more splendor, and more God, than all the rest of the world, and that will make it a Mormon temple:-"God and Liberty;" patterned somewhat after the order of our fore fathers', which were after the order of eternity.

The other public puildings [buildings] in Nauvoo, besides the temple, are the Seventies Hall, the Masonic Hall, and Concert Hall; all spacious, and well calculated for their designated purposes.

There is no licensed grocery to sell or give away liquors of any kind in the city; drunkards are scarce. Probable number of inhabitants, 14,000: nine-tenths Mormons.

Now for the welfare of your relatives. I have seen your mother and she cried for joy over your letter. Though in her 69th year, her heart was big with hope for her "darling son, William:"-and she blessed you in the name of the Lord.

The rest, I think, enjoy good health, and especially Emma, who amid her great affliction, has given birth to a son, and like David

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of old, may he yet be a terror to evil doers; one that will light his candle in the same great fire where his father's was lit, and search the world by the light of it, till the last stain of his father's blood, is made white by righteousness.

The record of your father's family presents the following summary of life and death:

Joseph Smith Sen., born in Topsfield, Mass., July 12, 1722. Died in Nauvoo, Ill., Sept. 14, 1840, aged 68. His grey [gray] hairs were brought down to the grave by being driven from the State of Missouri in the dead of winter by Gov. Boggs and his murderous banditti.

Lucy Smith (Mack) born in Gilsum, N. H. July 8, 1776, now in her 69th year; mourns the loss of a husband and six sons, the most of whom fell by the tender mercies of a Christian Republic, bestowed by the Herods of the land in civilized exile and murder.

Joseph Smith and Lucy Mack, married in Tunbridge, Vt. June 24, 1796.

Alvin Smith, born in Tunbridge, Vt., February 11, 1798. Died in Palmyra, N. Y., November 19, 1829, aged nearly 32.

Hyrum Smith born in Tunbridge, Vt., February 9, 1800, was murdered in Carthage jail, on the 27th of June, 1844, (by a mob,) aged 44. Thus fell a martyr, against whom not even one crime had ever been known.

Sophronia Smith born in Tunbridge, Vt. May 10, 1803, aged 41.

Joseph Smith Jr. born in Sharon Vt., December 23, 1805. Murdered in Carthage jail on the 27th of June, 1844, (by a mob,) on account of his religion as allmost [almost] all holy men had been before him;-aged 39. Thus fell a martyr, to gratify the cupidity of a priestly thirst for innocent blood; and shows the weakness of our government to protect her citizens: this first prophet of the last dispensation, whose godly works, whose virtuous deeds, and whose innocent blood will entitle him to a fame, a name, a glory, an honor, power, and dominion, with Gods, when his persecutors and murderers will mutter, groan, gnash their teeth, and sigh among the damned, where "their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."

Samuel Harrison Smith, born in Tunbridge, Vt., March 13, 1808. Died July 30th, 1844, broken hearted, and worn out with persecution. Aged 36. The righteous are removed from the evils to come.

Ephraim Smith, born in Royalton, Vt., March 13, 1810. Died March 24, 1810; aged 11 days.

William Smith, born in Royalton Vt., March 13, 1811; aged (soon) 34; the only male (living) of the family, and one of the "Twelve." Lord, while I write the "the fire burns for the mighty of Israel, to come up like a lion from the swelling of Jordan."

Katharine Smith, born in Lebanon N. H. July 28, 1813, aged 31.

Don Carlos Smith, born in Norwich Vermont, March 25, 1815. Died August 7, 1841, aged 26. His untiring vigilance for his parents and the persecutions of Missouri, brought him to the grave, just as he was stepping upon the threshhold [threshold] of life and usefulness.

Lucy Smith, born in Palmyra, N. Y. July 15, 1821; aged 23.

So here you have your history-without painting. The females all married, all Mormons and live in this vicinity.

How think ye this little sketch will fit the refinement of christendom? I believe the next generation will say, O, if we had only lived with those good men, we would not have murdered them! Do you think that this benevolent world, with all their priests, piety, pulpits and philanthropy, will call to mind that through their exertion or silence, one mother, born four days after our independence was declared, and four daughters-in-law, weep over the tombs of their mob-murdered husbands, while their innocent blood stains the land, the law, liberty and religion of the whole nation?

Our pseudo-President says in his last message: "The great moral spectacle has been exhibited of a nation, approximating in numbers to 20,000,000, of people, having performed the high and important duty of electing their chief magistrate for the term of four years, without the commission of any acts of violence, or a manifestation of a spirit of insubordination to the laws."

Now what says the people about the "riots in Philadelphia," the murder at Carthage of one of the candidates for that high office, and shooting a man dead in Tennessee for carrying a poke stalk? was their "any acts of violence" in all these manifestations of murder? Wo unto the hypocrite!

Governor Edwards of Missouri, in his message to the legislature, after regretting mob law or disobedience in other states, says, "but in our State, the great majority of the people are sober and discreet, mild and prudent, industrious and frugal, honest and virtuous, and above all, the lovers of good order and peace in society."

Such mock virtue; such hypocritical eulogy, is enough to merit an earthquake! Great God!! 15,000 people exiled, robbed, mobbed and murdered by executive authority, and now the people are all lovers of good order, and peace in society!

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This out Herods Herod! and out Bogges Boggs! O wrath of God! where art thou?

But I must begin to draw to a close, or my letter will be long enough for a pamphlet. I cannot leave the subject, however, till I bring in the "Twelve." They were known from before the foundation of the world, and are thus noticed in the prophecy of Zenos, in the Book of Mormon; I mean in that masterly parable of the "olive tree:" All men, acquainted with revelation and the spirit of God, have agreed that the "servant" spoken of in that parable, was Joseph Smith, and when the Lord commanded him "to go to and call other servants," and "they did go to it with their mights,"-as the whole has been backed up by revelations in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, it would require more than "mortal" to prove that allusion to the "servants," meant any body but the "Twelve."

I know the Twelve, and they know me.-Their names are Brigham Young, the lion of the Lord; Heber C. Kimball, the herald of grace; Parley P. Pratt, the archer of paradise; Orson Hyde, the olive branch of Israel; Willard Richards, the keeper of the rolls: John Taylor, the champion of right; William Smith, the entablature of truth; Orson Pratt, the gauge of philosophy; John E. Page, the sun dial; and Lyman Wight, the wild ram of the mountain. And they are good men; the best the Lord can find; they do the will of God, and the saints know it.

As to Sidney Rigdon and his clique of dissatisfied being-there was to be "another beast," and unclean spirits, like frogs, were to come out of the mouth of the dragon, beast, and false prophet, and time will reveal all about him-and eternity will settle it. The seed by the way side, among thorns, and stony places, belongs to the wicked one, and he will have it. Let the dead bury their dead.

So now, dear brother, while I respect you and the "Twelve," and all their kin, as my own blood relations, shall we, as the legal heirs of salvation, enlightened by the voice of God; by revelation upon revelation; by the gift of the Holy Ghost bringing all things to our remembrance; shall we, who have witnessed the power of God in the spread of the everlasting gospel; in the manifestations of the gift of tongues; the miraculous healing of the sick by the laying on the hands of the elders; shall we, who have spent so many sweet hours under the holy dropping of the prophets' golden fountain; who have been delighted at his heavenly knowledge combating the errors of generations; teaching senators wisdom; judges justice; priests piety, and mankind mercy; shall we, who have beheld prophecies fulfilled knowing that the very bowels of the earth have hove up her "stony ruins," to establish the validity of the Book of Mormon, beyond a doubt; shall we, who have heard the echo of glad tidings from the islands of the sea, and from all quarters of the earth; shall we, who now gaze upon the blood stained prairies of the west; where bleaches the bones of the prophets, patriarchs, elders, men, women, and children, who all gave up the ghost in full faith; shall we, who have tasted of the good word of God, and seen the mysteries of the world to come, shall we turn to the beggarly elements of the world, to work our passage back to popularity and hell, for a "mess of portage," like Hinkle, Bennett, Laws, Rigdon and Co? No! Eternally no!-While water runs and grass grows, while eternity goes and eternity comes we will go on, knowing that it is written in heaven; published on earth, and muttered in hell, that Mormonism is ETERNAL TRUTH, and God Almighty is the author of it!

All the friends and saints greet you and your wife and family, with prayer and love.

As ever,

W. W. PHELPS

To ELDER WM. SMITH.