[Footnote A: The Successor, p. 8.]
I would have more respect for this evidence if, instead of being the alleged statements of these several parties, it had been the very statements themselves—the statements of Mr. Whitehead and of Emma Smith, instead of a report of what they said by some Josephite writer. So far as Mr. George J. Adams is concerned he must very soon have forgotten his elation at finding out who the true successor of the prophet was; for he afterwards became a follower of Mr. Strang, and the very man who crowned him "king" at Beaver Island.[A]
[Footnote A: The Saints' Herald, Vol. XXXV, p. 718.]
Of this alleged anointing in 1844, when Mr. Smith was a lad twelve years of age, he himself can only say:
Before the death of my father and uncle Hyrum, I was blessed by the first, in the presence of quite a number of then prominent Elders in the Church, this blessing being confirmed just prior to the tragedy at Carthage.
This is the only personal statement of his that I have ever seen in all the writings of the Josephites in regard to his ordination and blessing by his father, and it appears that he has no recollection of the nature of this "blessing;" if he was anointed and blessed to be the future prophet and President of the church, he evidently has no recollection of it, though he was of an age when such a circumstance would make a deep impression on the mind and would never have left him in the doubt he confesses to, respecting his connection with the work of his father to which for many years, in his youth, he exhibited almost complete indifference.[A]
[Footnote A: See his autobiography published in Josephite edition of the Life of Joseph the Prophet, from p. 743-801.]
Of the alleged statement of Emma Smith, that she well remembers, though not present, the circumstance of the anointing in 1844—the elation of George J. Adams on learning who the successor of Joseph the prophet was to be, he coming immediately to her room after the ceremony of anointing to tell her the glad news; and also about well remembering her husband say that "young Joseph" was anointed and set apart to be his successor—of all this, I say, it is somewhat strange that Mrs. Emma Smith did not "well remember" it during the years of doubt through which "her son" passed, respecting his connection with the work of his father. How is it that she did not then come to his assistance by reminding him—since he had forgotten it, if he ever knew it—that he had been anointed and set apart to be the successor of his father,—both her husband and George J. Adams having told her so! Especially is her silence astonishing on the occasion of the visit of Messrs. Briggs and Gurley in 1856 to "young Joseph," when those gentlemen almost, as we have seen, commanded him to become the President of their organization. One of the interviews between these gentlemen and Mr. Smith was conducted in the home of Mrs. Emma Smith, they being introduced at that time both to her and her husband, Mr. Bidamon. It was on that very occasion, too, that Mr. Smith gave these gentlemen the answer that he would not go with them to be their leader, and he plodded on four years longer, in doubt as to what his future connection would be with the church. Instinctively one exclaims why did not his mother at that crisis come to the rescue, and say: Why, my son, you are yet to become the prophet and President of the church, founded under God, by your father. I well remember, though not present, the occasion on which you were anointed and set apart to that position by your father. Both your father and George J. Adams told me of it—the day you were blessed, don't you remember it? Instead of this we see her absolutely silent!
It is claimed, however, that at the Amboy conference in 1860, she endorsed her son as President of the church.
She publicly bore a faithful testimony to the work begun through her martyred husband, and said the present occasion was one she had looked for for the last sixteen years. Said she knew such a time must come, but had not known until a short time before that it was so near at hand.[A]