[Footnote A: Bishop Warburton's answer to Lord Sandwich when he said he did not know the difference between heterodoxy and orthodoxy.]
I come next to the fourth and last claim made in behalf of Mr. Smith, viz:—
He was ordained to be President of the church by those holding legal authority.
Mr. Smith was ordained by Messrs. William Marks, Z. H. Gurley, Samuel Powers and W. W. Blair; William Marks, I think, being mouth. This is that William Marks, who in 1839, was chosen president of the stake of Zion at Commerce, afterwards Nauvoo;—who a year or two before the prophet Joseph's death was associated with traitors and distrusted by the prophet;[A]—who sustained the claims of Sidney Rigdon to be "Guardian of the church";—who at the general conference of the church in Nauvoo, October, 1844, was rejected by the saints as president of the Nauvoo stake of Zion, two persons only voting in his favor, the rest against him;[B]—who as we shall see further on, in December, 1844, over his own signature said: "The Twelve are the proper persons to lead the church;"—who, in 1846, as per statement of Mr. Smith himself,[C] was associated with Mr. Strang, the apostate, in preaching in Fulton city and vicinity, calling upon Mr. Smith and his mother at the time;—and who in 1860 is the chief man in ordaining Mr. Smith "President of the church"—one possessing "legal" authority to do so! To say the least, in the light of William Marks' record, his "legal authority" to ordain the President of the church is very questionable.
[Footnote A: In the winter of 1843, at a time of great danger to the prophet, and when Nauvoo was in danger of being invaded from Missouri to capture him, forty men were sworn into service as special police. In addressing them on the occasion of their being sworn in, the prophet, then mayor of the city, spoke of the danger he was in from traitors living in Nauvoo, saying, "We have a Judas in our midst." This appears to have had an unpleasant effect upon the minds of some leading men in the church, especially upon the minds of Wm. Law and Wm. Marks, who complained before the mayor's court about the actions of these special police. After the investigation of their complaints Joseph, in his journal, says: "Whatever can be the matter with these men?" [Law and Marks] Is it that the wicked flee when no man pursueth, that hit pigeons always flutter, that drowning men catch at straws, or that presidents Law and Marks are absolutely traitors to the church, that my remarks should produce such excitement in their minds? . . . The people in the town are astonished, almost every man saying to his neighbor, "Is it possible that brother Law or brother Marks is a traitor, and would deliver brother Joseph into the hands of his enemies in Missouri? If not, what can be the meaning of all this? The righteous are as bold as a lion."—(Hist. Jos. S., Mill. S., Vol. XXII, p. 631.) Yet this man of whom the prophet could write these words, is the chief man in ordaining his son "President of the church!">[
[Footnote B: He had previously been dropped by the high council because he persisted in sustaining the claims of Sidney Rigdon as against those of the Twelve.—Times and Seasons, Vol. V, p. 692.]
[Footnote C: See his Aut. in Josephite Ed., Life of Joseph, p. 754.]
Zenas H. Gurley for years followed fames J. Strang's leadership, and advocated his claims. Subsequently apostatizing from him and uniting with Mr. Jason W. Briggs, in forming the "Reorganized church." Any authority held by Mr. Gurley previous to the death of Joseph the prophet, was destroyed by his leaving the church of Christ to follow the apostate James J. Strang; hence any ordination received under his hands was worthless.
I have not been able to learn what position, if any, Messrs. Powers and Blair held in the church previous to the martyrdom of the prophet; but it is enough to know that about the time "young Joseph" decided to take the Presidency of the "Reorganized church," they were associated with William Marks[A] in the work of "reorganizing" the church. It is claimed for them, however, as also for Mr. Gurley, that "they were apostles called by prophecy in the Reorganized church."[B]
[Footnote A: Life of Joseph Smith (Tullidge) Josephite Ed. p. 774.]