He was confused by the failings of the Christians in the town. Like his mother earlier, he was aware of more hypocrisy and contradiction than harmony or devotion. "My intimate acquaintance with those of differant denominations led me to marvel excedingly for I discovered that they did not... adorn their profession by a holy walk and Godly conversation agreeable to what I found contained in that sacred depository this was a grief to my Soul." The revivals created a "stir and division amongst the people" where there was supposed to be love. "All their good feelings one for another (if they ever had any) were entirely lost in a strife of words and a contest about opinions."28 37

100-101

Moses 133

Enoch 137

An Endowment of Power 155

Symonds Ryder, a Campbellite converted by Booth, left in disgust when his name was misspelled in a revelation.37 170

Because they were so important, the revelations were bound to be critiized. During the November conference a question arose about their language. Was the simple language of Joseph Smith worthy of the voice of 173 God? "Some conversation was had concerning Revelati ons and language * Joseph noted in his history. The inquiry could have come from Phelps, who wrote with considerable elevation, or the eloquent Rigdon, or William EF. McLellin, a schoolteacher. A revelation brought the matter into the open: "Your eyes have been upon my servant Joseph Smith, jun.: and his language you have known; and his imperfections you have known." While all were believers in the Prophet, a few wondered about the capacity of an unedvcated young man to do justice to his own revelations. "You have sought in your hearts knowledge," they were told, "that you might express beyond his language."
The question was not trivial. The revelations’ style could have brought Joseph’s revelatory powers into question. The beauty of the Qur’an’s language convinced many believers of its divinity; ragged language from Joseph Smith might have led to doubts. The November revelation sidestepped the issue by challenging the conference to appoint "the most wise among you" to manufacture an imitation. Take the least of the revelations, it offered, and try to "make one like unto it." William McLellin took up the challenge, "having more learning than sense," as Joseph put it."* McLellin’s failure to produce a revelation settled the question, and the elders bore testimony of the book.’’
Not long after this attempt, the issue arose again. A conference on November 8 instructed Joseph Smith to review the commandments and "correct those errors or mistakes which he may discover by the holy Spirit."°* Correcting "errors" in language supposedly spoken by God again raised the question of authenticity. If from God, how could the language be corrected? Correction implied Joseph’s human mind had introduced errors; if so, were the revelations really his productions?
The editing process uncovered Joseph’s anomalous assumptions about the nature of revealed words. He never considered the wording infallible. God’s language stood in an indefinite relationship to the human language coming through the Prophet. The revealed pretace to the Book of Commandments specified that the language of the revelations was Joseph Smith’s: "These commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding." The revelations were not God’s diction, dialect, or native language. They were couched in language suitable to Joseph’s time. The idioms, the grammar, even the tone had to be comprehensible to 1830s Americans. Recognizing the pliability of the revealed words, Joseph freely edited the revelations "by the holy Spirit," making emendations with each new He thought of his revelations as imprinted on his mind, not graven in stone. With each edition, he patched pieces together and altered the wording to clarify meaning. The words were both his and God’. 174
Edited or not, the revelations carried great weight. They were valued as scripture equal to the Bible, raising Joseph above everyone else. ‘The revelations that condemned Hiram Page’s rival revelations a year before had set the pattern. No one was to receive revelations for the Church "excepting my servant Joseph, for he receiveth them even as Moses."’° In Kirtland, he had silenced the visionaries when they competed with his authority. And yet in a perplexing reversal, the revelations also said everyone was to receive inspiration and speak for God. Despite Joseph’s monopoly on Church-wide revelation, the Lord promised these untutored elders revelation of their own. The preface to the Book of Commandments declared that "every man might speak in the name of God." A revelation at the November 1831 conference told the elders that "whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost, shall be scripture; shall be the will of the Lord; shall be the mind of the Lord; shall be the word of the Lord; shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation.""’ 175 173-175 Cf. Qur’an 2.23-24; 12.13; 17.88

The switch from rebuke to vision suggests the relief Joseph found in the contemplation of eternity. When the strains of managing Zion became too great, visions restored his strength. It rested him to gase upon Eternal wisdom engraven upon the hevens." In vision, he and Phelps stood together peacefully. Words were unnecessary. Indeed, they were a hindrance: Oh Lord God deliver us in thy due time from the little narrow prison almost as it were totel darkness of paper pen and ink and a crooked broken scattered and imperfect language."
He yearned for communion without words, possible perhaps only while viewing "the round of eternity."
Joseph had good cause to seek respite from the vexations of his work. The year began with tar and feathers and ended with a prediction of civil war. The world was in turmoil, and worse was coming. His own life was a 193 struggle. The recalcitrance of the Saints in Zion, added to persecution and criticism from outside, bore him down. From these discouragements, he turned to his visions for relief. While slogging through the mire in 1832 and early 1833, he received four seminal revelations, matching in importance any he had received previously. Welcomed as gifts from heaven, they marked a new stage in his development. ‘They went beyond Zion, the gathering, and the millennium, the governing ideas of the early years, to priesthood, endowment, and exaltation, the distinguishing doctrines of the later years. 194 193-194

This is the light of Christ. As also he is in the sun, and the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was made.
As also he is in the moon, and is the light of the moon, and the power thereof by which it was made.
As also the light of the stars, and the power thereof by which they were made.
And the earth also, and the power thereof; even the earth upon which you Stand.
And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, 1s through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings;
which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God, to fill the immensity of space.
The light which is in all things; which giveth life to all things; which is the law by which all things are governed: even the power of God, who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things." 206 Cf. Qur’an 24.35

Joseph combined words—truth, light, intelligence—to encompass his vision, but words still fell short. He was caught in the narrow prison of a crooked and broken language, as he had complained to Phelps. In the May 1833 revelation, he recorded pointed aphorisms without elaboration, as if to point at the truth without fully explaining it. 208

By seizing upon the temple rather than the church for a center of worship, Joseph put aside Christian tradition in favor of ancient Israel. During the course of his life, he never built a standard meetinghouse, even in Nauvoo, where the Mormon population exceeded 10,000. Although Sunday services were held regularly, the Nauvoo Saints met in houses, public buildings, and an outdoor "bowery." Wherever Joseph lived—in Kirtland, Independence, Far West, or Nauvoo—his architectural imagination focused on temples. Where he did not build a temple, he planned one. Having Christianized the Hebrew prophets in the Book of Moses and the Book of Mor- 216 mon, he turned to the Old Testament for inspiration." Gathering Israel to temples was in keeping with the Old Testament character of the entire Zion project.
Joseph had only vague ideas about the purpose of the temple when the revelations first mentioned the idea. In the Book of Mormon the idea of worshiping in temples appears only dimly. After the Church’s organization, "temple" first came up in a revelation about Christ appearing: "I will suddenly come to my temple," Joseph was told in late 1830. Otherwise, temples had no purpose when a site was designated for one at the "center" of the City of Zion in 1831.'" Temples at first were an empty form, awaiting content. 217 216-217

The conflict in Missouri changed Joseph’s politics dramatically. For the first time, government figured in his thought as an active agent. [he revelations had never before acknowledged a nation or government, not even the Constitution. Zion had been considered a society unto itself. "There is and can be no ruler nor lawgiver in the Kingdom of God save it be God our Saviour," Sidney Rigdon wrote in 1831.’* But the Jackson County attacks made government an essential ally in recovering the Saints’ lost lands. The moderate revelation on August 6 advised thesSaints to befriend constitutional law. The rights and privileges in the Constitution, the revelation said, belonged to all mankind and were justifiable before God, elevating those principles from the national to the universal. "As you know," he told his Missouri brethren in his August letter, "we are all friends to the Constitution yea true friends to that Country for which our fathers bled.""" From then on, Joseph was never far removed from politics. For a decade, he sought protection from the government, usually without success, until finally, frustrated by his inability to rally government to the Saints’ side, he ran for president.
In the long run, the appeals to government had an unexpected eftect on the Church’s self-image. The need to gather support for their petitions led the Saints to tell their story not as a narrative of revelations, but as one of persecutions. By the 1840s, when Joseph wrote about the Jackson County expulsion in great detail, he had perfected the form. The story of the Church had become an account of "wicked, outrageous and unlawful proceedings." Ihe history of Missouri featured beatings of "women, and children... driven or frightened from their homes, by yells and threats." As the persecution and sufferings mounted through the years, the Mormon story became more heart-wrenching. When Joseph received visitors, he was as likely to describe the mobbings as he was to explain his revelations. "In this boasted land of liberty," the Saints "were brought into Jeopardy, and threatened with expulsion or death because they wished to worship God according to the revelations of heaven, the constitutions of their country, and the dictates of their own consciences. Oh Liberty, how art thou 226 22/ fallen!"’® This persecution story, even without rhetorical embellishment, was persuasive. People who had no respect for the Saints’ theology, including much of the Missouri press in 1833, recognized the injustice of their treatment.’ The persecution was all the more poignant because it happened in a land presumably free.
The success of the appeal changed the Saints’ relation to the world. The customary language of conversion and gathering implicitly conceived of non-Mormons as potential converts who accepted or rejected the missionaries’ message. When a town rejected them, missionaries washed the dust off their feet and left that people to their fate.°’ The persecution story, by contrast, recognized an unbaptized, sympathetic middle group, not joiners or enemies, but somewhere in between. Accounts of persecution, paradoxically, bridged the gulf between the Saints and the unbelieving world by envisioning a body of sympathizers with whom friendly relations could be established without converting them.°’
The Church came to conceive of itself differently too. A general "Appeal" from the Missouri Mormon leadership in July 1834 claimed the Mormons were fulfilling biblical prophecy in gathering to Zion, as if they alone were carrying out God’s mission; but when the appeal switched to the Mormons’ right to "worship God according to the dictates of our own consciences," Mormonism became one religion among many. The Mormon paper pointed out that if "a majority may crush any religious sect with impunity," any religion could suffer; "the fate of our church now might become the fate of the Methodists" and then the Catholics." By asking for toleration and the right to worship, Mormonism had to present itself not as the one true church but as one church among a society of churches, all on an equal plane. 227 226-227

The Character of a Prophet

235 pacifism, militarism

236 Canaan

240-241 mound

On another occasion, Joseph taught a little millennial ecology. He stopped some men from killing three rattlesnakes by telling them: "When will the Lion lie down with the Lamb and the venom of the Serpent cease, while man seeks to destroy and waste the flesh of beasts, waging a continual war against reptiles, let man first get rid of his destructive propensities and then we may look for a change in the serpents’ disposition." [hey avoided killing snakes from them on, said George A., and shot wild animals only for food. 241

242 dog

Joseph had warned the brethren of punishment for their contentious spirit, and now their bickering brought misery and destruction." No revelation told Joseph that God had sent the cholera. He read his own ideas about Deity into the event. In the retelling, Joseph called Him Jehovah, whose Old ‘lestament character punished recalcitrants with suffering and death. In the camp’s extremity, Joseph seems to have called up a God out of his Puritan past, a God who would destroy His own people if they neglected His commands. This was the God, we must assume, to whom Joseph felt responsible for establishing Zion and preparing his people for exaltation, a God harsh and implacable, inflicting punishment on those who failed. 246

The high council hearings, along with events during Zion’s Camp, revealed Joseph’s weaknesses along with his strengths. He was a man of strong feeling and will, as was apparent in his commitment to this risky and difficult venture in the first place. He would not be defeated by the mobbers in Jackson County or the resistance of the Missouri government. Supported by militants like Lyman Wight, Joseph even showed a willingness to make the military gesture. He spoke of the armies of Israel and gave himself amilitary title. Some have argued he later made a war department a permanemafeature of Church organization.’" But when it came to military action, he backed down. The revelations authorized the Saints to defend themselves but made peace the better course. When an actual battle with the Missourians loomed, Joseph negotiated, as he was to do later in Missour1 and.again in Illinois. His own nature and the military culture of his time prompted mulitant rhetoric, but he stopped short of bloodshed. 249

Thirteen: Priesthood and Church Government 251

The characterization of Joseph Smith as the prophet with no gift for administration, whose inchoate movement was saved by the genius of Brigham Young, misses the mark. Joseph did not attend to details the way Young did, but he could certainly organize. Almost all of his major theological innovations involved the creation of institutions—the Church, the City of Zion, the School of the Prophets, the priesthood, the temple. Joseph thought institutionally more than any other visionary of his time, and the survival ofthis movement can largely be attributed to this gift. 251

The process seems incongruous in an organization led by a man who was believed to receive revelation from the mouth of God. How could any opinion but the Prophet’s count? The incongruity brings us back to the conundrum of Joseph Smith’s Mormonism: how could an authoritarian religion distribute so much power to individual members? Just as every member was expected to speak scripture by the Holy Ghost, so individual priesthood holders were allowed a voice in church governance, giving them ownership of the kingdom to which they had subjected themselves. The array of governing bodies and rélationships formalized in 1834 and 1835 was among Joseph Smith’s greatest achievements. In July, after the Clay County high council was organized,éhe told it that he had now completed the organization of the Church and made it independent enough to function without him. He was premature.in proclaiming an end to organizational development, but the statement underscored his belief that orga- 252 nization was crucial to his mission.° A revelation told him that "this shall be your business and mission in all your lives to preside in counsel."’ In many ways, the organization of Church government revealed Joseph’s thought as much as the doctrine. He believed the structure he created followed the "order of heaven in ancient councils." In a time when Protestant churches had lost interest in organizational forms, save to democratize them as far as possible, Joseph built an ever more elaborate structure in emulation of the ancient church as he understood it. While other churches were simplifying and flattening their structures, he erected complicated hierarchies. 253 252-253

nization was crucial to his mission.° A revelation told him that "this shall be your business and mission in all your lives to preside in counsel."’ In many ways, the organization of Church government revealed Joseph’s thought as much as the doctrine. He believed the structure he created followed the "order of heaven in ancient councils." In a time when Protestant churches had lost interest in organizational forms, save to democratize them as far as possible, Joseph built an ever more elaborate structure in emulation of the ancient church as he understood it. While other churches were simplifying and flattening their structures, he erected complicated hierarchies. 255 Cf. dar al-Islam and dar al-harb

257

In emphasizing priesthood, Mormonism moved to the other end of the religious spectrum, toward Roman Catholicism with its sacraments and the mysterious power of the priests to transform bread and wine into Christ’s flesh and blood. The sacral and the ecclesiastical combined in Mormonism as in Catholicism, adding to the strength of Church government. 260

Absent from these leadership positions was a place for women. They were unrepresented on the stands and in Church government, except to the extent that their hushands and fathers stood in for them. Women had no equivalent to the quorums for men. The organizational plan would continue to evolve but at this point women were subsumed under the men, the same assumption prevailing in the American political system in 1835. Mormon women received instruction from their fathers and husbands, spoke their minds in the family, and exercised spiritual gifts in public meetings.42 260

Joseph Sr.’s blessings suggest the personal meaning of priesthood to early members. Whether weak or strong, rich or poor, priesthood holders could pass priesthood to their sons. The 1835 priesthood revelation named the patriarchs who received the priesthood from father Adam: Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, and Methuselah; after Adam died, Lamech received the priesthood from Seth and Noah from Methuselah. As a later revelation was to say, the priesthood "came down from the fathers." Priesthood was a father’s legacy to his son, counting for more than lands and herds. In the overall plan, material possessions had a part too. Zion promised an "inheritance" to all who migrated there. Fathers who lacked the wealth to provide for their children, as many did in this fast-moving age, were promised land in the holy city. The word "inheritance" for describing properties in Zion expressed a father’s wish to bestow a legacy on his children.’ In restoring priesthood, Joseph restored fatherhood.°° 263

The revelation restored those familial elements of priesthood, perhaps to heal the wounds inflicted on fatherhood by the modern economy. 264

The origins of priesthood are never revealed and, according to the revelation, it had no beginning. The priesthood goes back before the founda. Hon of the world. This ancient order has always existed, descending from one ancient priest to the next. Only an occasional disruption in the orderly sequence required reordination under the hands of God, and Joseph Smith is not such an exception. He received his priesthood from John the Baptst Peter, James, John, and, later, Elijah. The revelation locates the source of authority in an ancient order coming down through time. The Melchizedek priesthood, we are told, has presided over "all the offices in the church, in all ages of the world."’’ Now priesthood order is being reconstituted in the latter days.
These peculiar conceptions make it difficult to understand how priesthood could find its place among the governments of Joseph’s day. Would not priesthood look like an alien system from another age? The revelations have little to say about democracy, the form of government to which priesthood had to be compared, but the contradictions, it would seem, would make it impossible for converts to live under the priesthood in the Church and function as democratic citizens in the general society. 266

As an ideal, righteousness served priesthood government as equality serves democracy. Never perfectly realized in practice, righteousness and equality constitute the inner spirit of their respective governmental systems. Ultimately, God checked unrighteous exercise of priesthood power. Unrighteous Church government would collapse. "The heavens with draw themselves the spirit of the Lord is grieved and when it has withdrawn amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man."" The priesthood model of righteous government was akin to political theories of the eighteenth century. In its emphasis on virtue in rulers and people, Church government resembled the classical republicanism of the revolutionary generation and government by a patriot king who sought only the good of the nation. Inveither republican or monarchical forms, good government in these theories required virtue at the center. In the dark times of the Confederation, John Jay wrote to George Washington that "the mass of men are neither wise nor good, and the virtue like the other resources of a country, can only be drawn to a point and exerted by strong circumstances ably managed, or a strong government ably administered." The problem was how to bring virtuous men to power, whether as patriot kings or as a corps of dedicated citizens ruling for the public good. 268

Under priesthood authority, as outlined in the revelations, the exercise of power was to be wholly benevolent, receiving and giving, not ordering and submitting. Government was to bless people. Properly exercised, authority eliminated coercion. Priests in this kingdom would rule like God Himself—without force. "Thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee for eve[r] and ever."" Joseph Smith is famous for saying that he governed his people by a thread. "T teachthem correct principles, and they govern themselves."°" Joseph*Smith knew, of course, that Church power, especially his own, won’ not appear benevolent. In a democratic society, so much authority in a single person set off alarms. As he told the Missouri Saints, people looked on him as q~""Tyrant,! Pope!! King!!! Usurper!!!!""° Besides the repeated charges of his enemies, close associates criticized him for abusing authority. Consideringtthe traditional dread of unchecked power, the charges seem inevitable. oseph’s confidence in the righteousness. of rulers seems naive. The accepted wisdom of the founding era in United States history was that, as David Hume put it, "in contriving any system of government . . . every man out ie*be supposed a knave.""’ Joseph’s plan of church government assumed the opposite; priesthood holders could be trusted with power. They would constitute a government that blessed and redeemed people and was received with gladness rather than fear and suspicion. 269

Fourteen: Visitors 270

Were the Mormons ready to join forces with kindred spirits like the Catholic Apostolic Church? Irving emerged from a vortex of English millenarianism that bore many resemblances to Mormonism. The Irvingites shared the Mormon sense of an imminent Second Coming for which the world must prepare. Both thought the Christian churches were irreparably dysfunctional. The millenarians believed the Jews would return to their own land and be converted. They doubtless knew of Joseph S. C. F. Frey, a converted Jew and head of the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, who believed the ten lost tribes dwelt among the American‘Indians. If Joseph had learned of these groups, would he have considered a combined effort to preach the Second Coming of Christ? The millenarian fervor burned brightly in Britain in the late 1820s.'* Were there erounds for an alliance? 273

Mormonism resisted ecumenism. 273

Joseph, blessed with an abundance of revelation, felt no need to embrace every outburst as precious intelligence from heaven. His own revelations came so frequently and authoritatively that he dismissed lesser manifestations, reserving the role of chief revelator for himself. Any effort at ecumenical collaboration had to come to terms with Joseph’s authority. Differing views of the canon also stood in the way. Others could see that the Bible did not restrict Joseph’s revelations. He expanded as well as explicated scripture. While saturated with Bible language, the Book of Mormon was an entirely new history of a people whose existence was scarcely glimpsed in the Bible.’* In the Book of Moses, Joseph added pages to the biblical accounts of Enoch, Moses, and Adam. His new histories and doctrines were tied to the Bible, and the Mormon elders claimed they taught an authentic Bible gospel, but for Joseph, the Bible was a gate, not a fence. Joseph’s daring—his blasphemous audacity, his enemies would say—erected a barrier to collaboration. "Monstrous claims," Josiah Quincy called them in 1844.15 What point was there in looking for common ground, when Joseph had departed for other realms entirely? He created a transbiblical world unlike anything known in the Christian churches and had no interest in forming alliances with less venturous souls. 274

The next morning, Joshua claimed descent from the apostle Matthias, chosen to replace Judas in the original twelve apostles. Matthias’s spirit was resurrected in him, and eternal life consisted of this transmigration of souls from father to son. At this point, Joseph moved to end the discussion. He told Matthias that "his doctrine was of the Devil that he was in reality in possession of [a] wicked and depraved spirit." Matthias remained another night with the Smiths, and the next day after breakfast Joseph "told him, that my God told me that his God is the Devil, and I could not keep him any longer." "And so I for once," Joseph reflected in his journal, "cast out the Devil in bodily shape."?’
Joseph quickly dismissed Matthias, but he has since been plagued by Matthias’s ghost. Their two names are still linked as "seers of the new republic" who "went beyond evangelical orthodoxy into direct and often heretical experience of the supernatural." The opening chapter of the best modern study of Matthias is entitled "Iwo Prophets at Kirtland." Joseph and Matthias are classed as leading examples of an extraordinary American tradition. "Extremist prophets have a long and remarkably continuous history in the United States," coming down to modern cult leaders."* Joseph and Matthias met in Kirtland, and many believe they have remained together ever since. 275

Joseph sensed the gulf between himself and Matthias when he said Matthias’s God was the devil, but considering the two together actually clarifies the nature of early Mormonism. Was it a radical cult, as the comparison to Matthias implies, led by a charismatic figure whose credulous followers blindly obeyed his commands? One difference was that, unlike Matthias’s little household, Mormonism had an existence apart from Joseph Smith. Missionaries preached the gospel without mentioning his name; most converts accepted Mormonism without meeting the Prophet. The opposite was true of Matthias. His followers were under the spell of his personality. He was the God of the kingdom. After his downfall, his religion perished with him. After Joseph Smith died, Mormonism went on growing. Matthias’s religion was driven by his personality, Joseph’s by doctrine, program, and organization. Matthias created a perishable cult, Joseph a viable church.
Paradoxically, it was the revelations, the main reason for linking Joseph to Matthias, that differentiated the two. Unlike other American prophets, Joseph wrote his revelatigns down, turning them into scripture. The Book of Mormon and the published books of revelations made Mormonism conservative in a churchly sense. ecorded, available for study in printed compilations, and canonized, the texts formed a body of doctrine inviting interpretation and the formation of orthodoxy. The texts anchored Mormonism in the same way that the Bible and the creeds anchor Christian orthodoxy or the Constitution’limits lawmaking. Mary Baker Eddy’s Science ana Health with Key to the Scriptures helped Christian Science evolve from a potentially radical sect into atrespectable, staid church. In the same fashion, the Doctrine and Covenants stabilized the doctrines of Mormonism." 276
Early Mormonism was further regularized by its organization. Joseph Smith’s interest in ecclesiastical structure, unlike cult leaders and extremist prophets, led to the creation of offices, councils, and diffused authority. The success of Mormonism, compared to Matthias’s short-lived Kingdom, was due to Joseph’s instinct for institution-building. In Utah, Mormonism easily moved from sect to established religion, because all the elements of a church were present already.
In one respect, Matthias and Joseph were similar: both men believed in immediate revelation. They both discerned what orthodoxy had forgotten: that biblical authority rested on communication from God. Believers embraced the Bible because its words originated in heaven. Protestantism had smothered this self-evident fact by relegating revelation to a bygone age, making the Bible an archive rather than a living reality. The extremist prophets brought revelation into the present, renewing contact with the Bible’s God. In that, Joseph and Matthias stood together. Even the evangelist Charles Finney, before his conversion, marveled that prayers for the spirit of God were never answered: "Did I misunderstand the promises and teachings of the Bible on this subject, or was I to conclude that the Bible was not true?"*’ Joseph Smith—along with Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers; the Irvingites in England; and thousands of early Methodists and Quakers—wanted more revelation than conventional Protestantism offered."
Reliance on revelation made Joseph and the other visionaries appear marginal, but like marginal people before them, the prophets aimed a question at the heart of their culture: if believers in the Bible dismissed revelation in the present, could they defend revelation in the past? For centuries Christian apologists had been debating the veracity of miracles and the inspiration of the prophets with Deists, skeptics, and infidels. In the intellectual wars of the later nineteenth century, believers steadily lost ground. The loss, later characterized as the disenchantment of the world, was only dimly perceived by everyday Christians in Joseph Smith's time, but in the century to come, the issue divided divinity schools and troubled ordinary people.*’ Was the Bible inspired writing or purely a historical work? Did biblical miracles actually occur, or were they fabulous tales made up long afterwards? Was God, in other words, active in human affairs? Joseph Smith resisted that ebbing current. Revelation was the essence of his religion. "Take away the book of Mormon, and the revelations, and where is our religion? We have none." He received revelation exactly as Christians thought biblical prophets did. In effect, he reenacted the writing of the Bible. Most put him aside as an obvious charlatan, but if revelation in the present was so unimaginable, why believe revelation in the past? One incredulous visitor marveled that Joseph—"nothing but a man"—claimed 277 revelation, to which Joseph replied that "they look upon it as incredible that a man should have any intercourse with his Maker." Joseph’s lite posed the question: does God speak?"*
In this sense, Joseph was indeed an "extremist prophet." He forced the question of revelation on a culture struggling with its own faith. Joseph’s historical role, as he understood it, was to give God a voice in a world that had stopped listening. "The Gentiles shall say, A Bible, a Bible, we have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible": so said the Book of Mormon. "CO fools," the Lord rejoins, "know ye not that I am the same yesterday, today, andiforever; and that I speak forth my words according to mine own pleasure." One reason for restoring the Book of Mormon, an early revelation said, was to prove "that the holy scriptures are true." In reply to a ministers inquiry about the distinguishing doctrine of Mormonism, Joseph told him that "we believe the bible, and they do not.""° It was the power of the Bible that Joseph and the visionaries sought to recover. Not getting it from the ministry, they looked for it themselves. 278 276-278

Fifteen: Texts 279

Mormons needed an answer to the question "What do Mormons believe?" In the October 1834 issue of the Messenger and Advocate, the Church’s newspaper in Kirtland, Oliver Cowdery attempted a summary. 281

Doctrine and Covenants 282

Even near the end of his career, he resisted any attempt to stanch the springs of inspiration. "The most prominent point of difference in sentiment between the Latter Day Saints & sectarians," a clerk later recorded him saying, "was, that the latter were all circu[m]scribed by some peculiar creed, which deprived its members the privilege of believing any thing not contained therein; whereas the L. D. Saints had no creed, but are ready to believe all true principles that exist, as they are made manifest from time to Creeds fixed limits. They seemed to say "thus far and no further," while for Joseph the way was always open to additional truth: "The creeds set up stakes, & say hitherto shalt thou come, & no further.— which I cannot subscribe to." He wanted the door left ajar for truth from every source. He revised his own revelations, adding new material and splicing one to another, altering the wording as he saw fit. He felt authorized to expand the revelations as his understanding expanded. In later editions of the Doctrine and Covenants this freewheeling style prevailed. Instead of putting the key revelations first, as if they had preeminence, the later editions became once more a chronological compilation of Joseph's revelations in all their tangled, unsystematic glory."
Joseph once said that Methodists "have creeds which a man must believe or be kicked out of their church. I want the liberty to believe as I please, it feels so good not to be tramelled." Revelation meant freedom to Joseph, freedom to expand his mind through time and space, seeking truth wherever it might be. 285

Abraham 285

Joseph Smith’s Book of Abraham is best thought of as an apocryphal addition to the Genesis story of Abraham, in the same vein as the Enoch passages in the Book of Moses. Characteristically, Joseph’s translated account did not repeat the familiar biblical stories, instead expanding on a few verses about Abraham’s origins in Ur of the Chaldees, adding material not mentioned in the Bible.22 286

To the familiar idea of Abraham as a prince and the father of many nations, Joseph’s account adds priesthood, a theme running through the entire story. The Book of Abraham can be considered an extension of the priesthood revelations that had influenced the Church in the past few years—in contrast to the earlier Book of Moses, which rarely used the word. In Abraham’s case, the priesthood is not given by ordination alone but is received as an inheritance. Priesthood is a "right belonging to the fathers." It descends to Abraham "from the fathers, from the beginning of time, yea, even from the beginning, or before the foundations of the earth, to the present time, even the right of the first born, o[r] the first man, who is Adam, or first father."24 287

288 blacks and the priesthood

289 slavery

Abraham is the third of Joseph’s foundational biographies, stories of ‘ndividuals who founded nations. One great character dominates each sory he Book of Mormon opens with "I, Nephi," matching the opening of Abraham: "In the land of the Chaldeans, at the residence of my fathers, I, Abraham." A person immediately flashes on the screen. The first chapter of Moses begins in the third person but immediately switches into Moses 289 first-person account of seeing God face-to-face. From these individuals come peoples and civilizations. Nations spring up in these narratives and, in Moses and Abraham, humankind itself. The writings tell why earth was created, or how a people came into existence, through the account of a single figure. Nephi blends the dispersal of Israelite civilization to the New World with the story of his family. The Book of Abraham shows the founding of the Abrahamic nation, the people with priesthood who wiil bless the earth. In a sidebar to Abraham’s story, Egyptus and Pharaoh found Egypt. These stories are preoccupied with beginnings.
Joseph wrote in a time of epics, when American literary figures were creating foundational stories for the new nation. Joel Barlow, the lateeighteenth-century Connecticut poet, attempted an epic in [he Columbiad his long vision of Columbus, as did Timothy Dwight in his recounting of the biblical Joshua as a barely disguised George Washington in Ihe Conquest of Canaan. Both were narratives of nation founding told as the story of ereat individuals. Joseph Smith’s Moses, Abraham, and Nephi compare to the leading figures in Barlow’s and Dwight’s epic poems, but in daring and originality, Joseph exceeds them. The American poets overlaid familiar biblical events with blunt references to the United States; Joseph’s expansion of the biblical stories transcended the national.’? He stepped out of his own time into antiquity in search of the origins of civilization. Moses and Abraham even have cosmological dimensions. All three betray a fascination with how the world began. 290 289-290

Translating 290

Some Mormon scholars, notably Hugh Nibley, doubt that the actual texts for Abraham and Joseph have been found. The scraps from the Metropolitan Museum do not fit the description Joseph Smith gave of long, beautiful scrolls. At best the remnants are a small fraction of the originals, with no indication of what appears on the lost portions." Nonetheless, the discovery prompted a reassessment of the Book of Abraham. What was going on while Joseph "translated" the papyri and dictated text to a scribe? Obviously, he was not interpreting the hieroglyphics like an ordinary scholar. As Joseph saw it, he was working by inspiration—that had been clear from the beginning. When he "translated" the Book of Mormon, he did not read from the gold plates; he looked into the crystals of the Urim and Thummim or 291 characters on the plates. By analogy, it seemed likely that the papyri haq been an occasion for receiving a revelation rather than a word-for-word interpretation of the hieroglyphs as in ordinary translations. Joseph translated Abraham as he had the characters on the gold plates, by knowing the meaning without actually knowing the plates’ language. Warren Parish, his clerk, said, "I have set by his side and penned down the translation of the Egyptian Heiroglyphicks as he claimed to receive it by direct inspiration of heaven." When Chandler arrived with the scrolls, Joseph saw the papyri and inspiration struck. Not one to deny God’s promptings, the Prophet said what he felt: the papyri were the writings of Abraham and Joseph. The whole thing was miraculous, and to reduce Joseph’s translation to some quasi-natural process, some concluded, was folly." The peculiar fact is that the results were not entirely out of line with the huge apocryphal literature on Abraham. His book of Abraham picked up themes found in texts like the Book of Jasher and Flavius Josephus’s Antiguities of the fews. In these extrabiblical stories, Abraham’s father worshiped idols, people tried to murder Abraham because of his resistance, and Abraham was learned in astronomy—all features of Joseph Smith’s narrative. Josephus says, for example, that Abraham delivered "the science of astronomy" to the Egyptians, as does Joseph’s Abraham. The parallels are not exact; the Book of Abraham was not a copy of any of the apocryphal texts. In the Book of Fasher, Abraham destroys the idols of King Nimrod with a hatchet and is thrown into a furnace; Joseph’s Abraham offers no violence to the idols and is bound on a bedstead." The similarities are far from complete, but the theme of resisting the king’s idolatry and an attempted execution followed by redemption by God are the same. The parallels extend to numerous small details.
Joseph may have heard apocryphal stories of Abraham, although the Book of Jasher was not published in English until 1829 and not in the United States until 1840. A Bible dictionary published by the American Sunday School Union summed up many of the apocryphal elements. Whether Joseph knew of alternate accounts of Abraham or not, he created an original narrative that echoed apocryphal stories without imitating them. Either by revelation, as his followers believed, or by some instinctive affinity for antiquity, Joseph made his own late—and unlikely—entry in the long tradition of extrabiblical narratives about the great patriarch." 292 291-292

Unfortunately for his peace of mind, Joseph’s angry responses conflicted with the harmony and brotherhood he prized. Through the fall of 1835, he engaged in a series of small quarrels, domestic disturbances, and squabbles. He did not rise above the fray in the serene majesty of his calling. The culture of honor moved him to contend with the offending parties to protect his easily bruised pride, even though all the while he wanted peace. He hated contention and tried to make peace by mutual confessions and brotherly arbitration. But his own sensitivity entangled him in further rows, repeatedly recycling resentment and reconciliation. By January 1836, when he made peace with his antagonists, the meaning of Zion to a man of his temperament was clear. To live in harmony with his brothers and sisters, as the revelations required, was reason to rejoice. 295

While Joseph was sensitive to the spirit of others, he may have been tonedeaf to the spirit of his own words. Unable to bear criticism, he rebuked anyone who challenged him. Benjamin Johnson, a great admirer, said, "Criticism, even by associates, was rarely acceptable, and contradiction would rouse in him the lion at once, for by no one of his fellows would he be superseded or disputed." 296

Joseph’s office required him to detect evil spirits, and reproofs were necessary. As he said a few years later, "he rebuked and admonished his brethren frequently, and that because he loved them: not because he wished to incur their displeasure or mar their happiness." 296

Typically, Joseph’s anger evaporated after admission of error on both sides. He wanted to put difficult matters behind him. But those who were affected could not always forget so easily. 298

Once people gave way, Joseph forgave and forgot the matter. He could not understand how others felt when shamed. Emma wept and said nothing.
When he could not have his way, Joseph sometimes rained down curses on his opponents. 299

Joseph hated to feud. He was depressed by the "abuse, anger, malice, hatred, and rage" 301

Joseph summed up his own personality in a letter of instruction from the Liberty jail three years later: "Reproving betimes with sharpness when moved upon by the holy ghost and then showing forth afterwords an increas of love to ward him whom thou has reproved lest he esteem the[e] to be his enemy that he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death."
Zion promised to end all this. In Zion, there would be no lacerating offenses, no insults, no vengeance, no infringements on honor. ‘The inhabitants of Enoch’s city "were of one heart and one mind." The Saints would live together amicably, escaping the ceaseless round of insults and reprisals, of rebuke and reconciliation. 302

Seventeen: The Order of Heaven 305

How the Smiths paid the bills in these years is a mystery. Joseph's journal shows no evidence of working for money. In 1834, he had been granted the stewardship of a farm near the temple site, but he recorded no income or benefit. He never mentioned doing farm work or supervising anyone’ labors. Later he opened a store in Kirtland, but the store was not profitable.° Joseph’s followers helped by bringing food—half a fattened hog from. John Tanner, a quarter beef from Shadrach Roundy. Others gave Joseph money or forgave borrowed sums. The Smiths never lived well, but in their small house on the hill neither did they starve.° 306

The workers were poor. Young once came to the printing house looking for assistance, saying "he had nothing in his house to eat, and he knew not how to get any thing." To feed his family, he borrowed twenty-five dollars from a newcomer in town. The temple committee was so far in debt, it appealed constantly for contributions in order to pay the workers. Women 306 spun, knitted, and sewed clothes for the laboring poor. Joseph negotiateg loan after loan until the size of the debt drove him to pleading and bargaining with the Lord. He and Cowdery promised that if means were obtained to pay their debts, they would give one-tenth of their income to the poor and the same for their children and their children’s children.* Heber Kim. ball later estimated final construction costs at between $40,000 and $50,000, a huge sum when a laborer was lucky to earn $400 a year. A large part was paid by one wealthy convert, John ‘Tanner, who donated $13,000 and may have loaned another $30,000."
By the summer of 1835, the Saints were assembling for worship in the shade of the temple walls. In January, the School of the Prophets, also called the School for the Elders, which had met in the printing office since November, moved into the temple. The December 1832 revelation calling for the temple’s construction had spoken of it as a house of learning and described how to conduct a school according to divine order. During the school’s five-month term, the students studied Greek, Hebrew, and theology. The instruction did not go much further, though English grammar was taught as a remedial course, along with geography.*" In the four rooms under the eaves, the priesthood quorums assembled for instruction. While the workmen’ tools were still scattered about, a singing school met in the "Chapel," as the temple was sometimes called.11 308 306-308

Women remained invisible in the organization and were absent from most ritual events. Some resented it. During the 1836 pentecostal sessions, George A. Smith remembered, a few women thought "that some mischief was going on, some were right huffy about it." They were most sensitive about exclusion from spiritual occasions, gifts being their vital connection with the Church.!8 Joseph would not define a place for women in the order of heaven for another half-dozen years. 310

During the winter, a small committee under Joseph’s direction worked out nine rules for temple conduct. They prohibited going up the stairs during worship, marring the house with knife or pencil, and children playing in the rooms. Speakers were not to be interrupted by laughing, whispering, or "menacing Jestures," and the presiding officers were not to be insulted. Joseph solemnly told the assembled authorities that they were under "great responsibility" to enforce the rules "in righteousness before God, inasmuch as our decisions will have a bearing upon all mankind and upon all generations to come.""? Decorum apparently had to be perfect for the Saints to receive the outpouring of heaven. Even the walls and the furniture were to be honored, if people were to change from "natural" to heavenly conduct. Later the Saints removed their shoes and dressed in white on entering the temple.*’ 310

311 washing and anointing

One searches in vain for such rituals among Joseph’s Protestant contemporaries. Ihe Shakers’ mountaintop feasts of the Passover were in anothe; vein entirely, and the Baptists’ feet-washing in imitation of the New Tests. ment practice never came to full washings or anointings with oil.’’ Olive; Cowdery reveals Joseph’s source in commenting that "those named in the first room were annointed with the same kind of oil and in the man[ner] that were Moses and Aaron, and those who stood before the Lord in ancient days." In Exodus, the Lord commanded Moses to "bring Aaron and his sons unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and wash them with water." Then "thou shalt put upon Aaron the holy garments, and anoint him, and sanctify him; that he may minister unto me in the priest’ office." The washing and anointing of ancient Hebrew priests became the pattern for the modern temple. Even the cinnamon perfume was in the biblical recipe for anointing oil. Exodus called for myrrh and calamus to be mixed with "sweet cinnamon," but cinnamon was all these poor Latter-day priests could manage. In an era when many Christians were sloughing ott the Hebrew Bible and taking their Gospel solely from the New Lestament, Joseph drew upon ceremonies in Later the Saints clothed themselves in holy garments like Aaron. 312

Through January and February, the brethren read Hebrew by day, and washed, anointed, prayed, and beheld visions by night.35 313

Joseph’s method for bringing his people to holiness differed from the approach of evangelical preachers. Rather than convicting people of thei; sins, thus humbling them before God, Joseph relied upon the power of ritual to arouse their spirits. The Saints did not have to admit their helplessness as a first step toward reaching Christ. They were washed, anointed, and blessed—ministered to, rather than upbraided—a more liturgical than evangelical method. Phelps wrote his wife, "We are preparing to make ourselves clean, by first cleansing our hearts, forsaking our sins, forgiving every body, all we ever had against them; anointing washing the body; putting on clean decent clothes, by anointing our heads and by keeping all the commandments. As we come nearer to God we see our imperfections and nothingness plainer and plainer.""° 314

In March, the temple washings and anointings ended, and the month was devoted to Hebrew study in the school. "Attended School as usual" was Joseph’s typical diary entry. The temple neared completion and dedication loomed. 315

The dedication on March 27 was open to the general public. "A prea; many strangers came from the country to see it," reported Ira Ames. who collected donations at the door. People arrived at 7 a.m., and 500 or 600 were waiting outside when the doors opened at 8:00. Joseph, Cowdery, and Rigdon seated goo to 1,000 in the lower court of the temple. The Overflow went to the schoolhouse for a meeting, and the dedication was repeated the following Thursday for their benefit. Recognizing a genera] interest, the dedicatory prayer was published in a Messenger ana Advocate hroadside.*
As often happened on grand occasions, Sidney Rigdon, the most polished of the Church’s preachers, took the leading role. 316

These exhausting and exhilarating three months, the zenith of the Saints’ ecstatic experience, came in the 1830s, at a high point of visionary religion ‘n American history.°? In 1837, Emerson would tell Harvard Divinity School graduates "that the gleams which flash across my mind, are not mine, but God’s."** In the next year, the "Era of Manifestations" began 1n Shaker communities at New Lebanon and Watervliet, New York, where visions, tongues, and spiritual "operations" took over entire congregations. In 1844, Ellen G. White, the Adventist prophetess, would receive the first in a series of visions that eventually filled many volumes. In the late 1830s a cluster of evangelical theologians around Charles G. Finney at Oberlin contemplated the doctrine of sinless perfection. Under the influence of grace, a person could live a perfectly sinless life.’ For a number of groups, the cap on human experience seemed to be lifting. 319

To their surprise, the spiritual experiences in the temple were not over.59 The next Sunday, about a thousand people attended the morning service and returned in the afternoon for the sacrament. At the conclusion, Joseph and Cowdery went into one of the pulpits and had the veil dropped, cutting them off from view of the congregation. In seclusion, they experienced one of Joseph’s most spectacular visions, later recorded by Warren Cowdery, Joseph’s clerk and Oliver’s brother. 318

The episode behind the veil is mysteriously suspended at the end of the diary without comment or explanation, as if Joseph was stilled by the event." Joseph would have needed time to understand Elijah’s part in the order of heaven. As for Abraham, Joseph had been translating his writing: since the Egyptian scrolls were purchased the previous summer, and Abraham’s gospel still was not clear. How did it differ from the gospel the Saints already had? In time, the name of Abraham would be invoked to explain marriage practices too radical to be announced.
Besides marking the completion of the temple, the April 3 vision signaled the coming of incommunicable revelations. The frequency of announced revelations slowed in the ensuing years. Doctrine came through 320 sermons, offhand comments, and letters, reports on revelations rather than IM cevelations themselves. An air of mystery and reticence rises around the OL thet. He had conscientiously worked to install the order of heaven in Kirtland as rapidly as new light came to him, introducing washings and anointings and ceremonial order. After the temple dedication, he confidently informed the Saints that he had completed the organization of the Church and given them all the instruction they needed. Zion could now be built. But then just as he was setting to work on Zion, an enigmatic revelation intervened. Ihe revelation behind the veil suggested that Joseph was moving ahead of his followers. He began to speak of revelations they could not bear. 321 320-321

Eighteen: Reverses 322

322-323

the letter repeated all the familiar biblical arguments in support of slavery and warned traveling elders against preaching to slaves without their masters’ permission."’ 328

All the investors los their capital, Joseph as much as anyone. He had bought more stock than eighty-five percent of the investors. As treasurer and secretary and signer of the notes, Joseph and Rigdon begged the note holders to keep them, promising that the economy would benefit. In June, faced with complete collapse, both resigned. In August, Joseph publicly disavowed the Kirtland notes in the Church The bank staggered on until November long since moribund. 330

Widespread apostasy resulted. The volatility in prices, the pressure to collect debts, the implication of bad faith were too much for some of the sturdiest believers. The stalwarts Parley and Orson Pratt faltered for a few months. David Patten, a leading apostle, raised so many insulting questions Joseph "slaped him in the face & kicked him out of the yard." Joseph’ counselor Frederick GaWilliams was alienated and removed from office. One of the Prophet’s favorites, his clerk Warren Parrish, tried to depose him. Heber C. Kimball claimed that by June 1837 not twenty men in Kirtland believed Joseph was a prophet." 332

The turmoil in Joseph’s mind in 1837 seems to have matched the disrup. tions in the Church. The despair he felt during his June illness may have been with him at other times. Reading between the lines of the sparse records, it appears that the letdown after the Kirtland endowment puzzled and depressed him. He had anticipated triumph and instead suftered deteat, Where was God during these setbacks? Only one revelation during the year was deemed worthy of inclusion in the later Doctrine and Covenants. Only 340 seemed closed, or at least he chose to keep silent about it. Except for the bold stroke of the English mission, he seems to have lost his way. The bank, his great hope for Kirtland, had crashed, injuring and alienating his friends. He knew only dark days. He wrote to John Corrill in Missouri in September that "we have waided through a scene of affliction and sorrow thus far for the will of God, that language is inadequate to describe." ‘Though he blessed the God "who has delivered you many times from the hands of your Enimies," he had no counsel to offer, no revelation, no bright prospect. He sent them a copy of the Kirtland High Council minutes for September 3, that the Missouri Saints may know "how to proceed to set in order & regulate the affairs of the Church in Zion whenever they become disorganized."’® He had nothing more to say. 341

348-349

351-353

However he felt personally about the Mormons, Boggs could not resist the popular will. He was caught in the predicament that Alexis de Tocqueville perceived as the classic dilemma of democratic society: the majority ruled even when it trampled the rights of a minority.’ No agency of government could stand against overwhelming popular opinion. As ‘Tocqueville could have predicted, the Mormons had no redress, no matter how grievous the crimes against them. 365

Seeing no alternative, Joseph acceded to Lucas’s terms. The Mormons were to give up their arms and leave the state. Those accused of crimes were to be surrendered and tried. Mormon property in Missouri was to be confiscated to reimburse the Daviess citizens whose houses had been burned. The Mormons were to give up everything except their lives. Hinkle thought the demands beyond reason and wanted to seek better. He argued they were being asked to give up "their most sacred rites as citizens of a republican tate." Joseph, with little faith in republican rights, sent word to comply anyway. 50 With 2,500 Missouri militia men camped outside of Far West, he bad no stomach for battle. The Mormons were to give up their Zion. Lucas, the Saints’ old Jackson County enemy, seeking drumhead justice, held.a court-martial the night of Joseph’s capture. Joseph was convicted of treason againstéthe state with no opportunity to defend himself, and with the other prisoners he was sentenced to be executed the next morning. Lucas was halted in this illegal action (Joseph was not a militia member and thus was not subject to court-martial) only by the refusal of the Saints’ friend Donipha:ato carry out the execution order.’ Doniphan would not even execute thc four prisoners who were militia and subject to a military court. 367

The testimony put Joseph squarely at the center of a plot to erect an independent government that planned to wage war on the state of Missouri. Outside the courtroom, a hostile crowd muttered threats and intimidated the witnesses. At the end, the court found probable cause to charge Joseph and five others with "overt acts of treason." Another five, including Parley Pratt, were charged with murder because a Missourian was killed at Crooked River. The rest of the accused Mormons were dismissed. Outraged, the prisoners complained bitterly to one another, save for Joseph, who was silenced by a toothache and pain in his face." Because the Richmond jail was crowded, on December 1 the group charged with treason were sent chained and handcuffed to Liberty, the Clay county seat.61 369

370-371

Joseph’s system of government by councils proved its worth in his absence. 374

Joseph worried about his upcoming trial. Although he spoke confidently of acquittal, his life was at stake. If convicted of treason, he would be executed, and the likelihood of exoneration was slight. On January 24, the Mormon prisoners petitioned the state legislature for a change of venue and a new trial judge. No county would be sympathetic, but a fair trial in upper Missouri was impossible. Judge King, who would likely preside, had already publicly pronounced the defendants guilty. Hoping for some relief the prisoners requested that their case be heard on a plea of habeas corpus, The Clay County judge refused the pleas of all but the ailing Sidney Rigdon, who spokefor himself from a cot. Winning over the court with his eloquence, he was released on loeyih on January 25. He stole away at night ten days later, fearing the Missouriansywould kill him if he were caught." 374

Despite mistreatment by the governor, courts, and militia, Joseph did not become cynical about government. The March 20 letter shows him moving toward greater political involvement. He saw more clearly than ever that constitutional rights were the Saints’ best and perhaps only defense. ‘The beauty of the United States Constitution was that it "garentees to al parties sects and demominations and clases of religeon equal and coher[ent and] indefeasible right": "Hence we say that the constitution of the unit[ed] States is a glorious standard it is founded [in] the wisdom of God it is a heavenly banner it is to all those who are privilaged with the sweats of its liberty like the cooling shades and refreshing watters of a greate rock in a thirsty and weary land." ‘True, the Saints had been deprived of protection, but the "fruit is noes presious and delisious to our taist." He realized, as the historian John Wilson has noted, that citizens can only make constitutional principles work by entering the political arena.’ 377

Ironically, persecution moderated the Saints’ relationship with the rest of the world. For conversion purposes, the errors in other religions could be emphasized, but for political purposes, goodwill was more important. Potential friends had to be treated respectfully. In the Liberty letter, Joseph urged the Saints to respect other religious beliefs. He had never advocated forceful imposition of Mormonism, but here he said Mormons must guard against becoming antagonistic or aggressive. [hey must "be awair of those prejudices which sometimes so strongly presented themselves and are so 377 congenial to human nature against our neighbors friends and bretheren of the world who choose to differ with us in opinion and in matters of faith." These people, Joseph reminded the Saints, had every right to their own beliefs. "Our religeon is betwean us and our God their religeon is betwean them and their God." Of course, common faith bound the Saints firmly to one another, but our faith "gives scope to the mind which inables us to conduct ourselves with grater liberality to word all others that are not of our faith than what they exercise to wards one another." Toleration and respect "approximate nearer to the mind of God.""° 378

Apart from the leaders’ mistakes, Joseph saw that the Church had been in error. The tone and spirit of their meetings had been unworthy. Beware, he warned, of "a fanciful and flowe[r]y and heated immagination," perhaps a reference to Sidney Rigdon. "The things of God Are of deep import and time and expeariance and carful and pondurous and solom though|ts] can only find them out." Joseph tried to define an emotional posture suitable for the pursuit of divine knowledge. What was the right walk for a man offCiating in the priesthood? "Thy mind O Man, if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation must streach as high as the utmost Heavens, and sear[c]h in to and contemplate the lowest conside[r]ations of the darkest abyss." The Saints had to rise to their revelations. "How much more dignifide and noble are the thoughts of God, than the vain immaginations of the human heart,’ which were too often ignoble and crude. "How vane and trifling, have ben 478 our spirits, our Conferencs our Coun|clils," Joseph wrote, "to low to mean to vulgar to condecending, for the dignifide Characters of the Cald and Chosen of God."!® 479 478-479