[3]. This refers to Fac-simile No. 2, p. 521, which was published in the Times and Seasons in double page size.
[4]. The correspondence between Dr. Dyer, Chicago, and Dr. John C. Bennett, referred to in the Prophet's letter above, is thought to be of sufficient importance to be inserted in the body of the History, though heretofore, when the history of the Prophet has been published, it has been omitted. The case of the three men from the Quincy Mission Institute being imprisoned for twelve years; in the Missouri penitentiary "for no crime at all, or only as such us God would regard as a virtue"—"for barely teaching a fellow being," as Dr. Dyer naively put it, "how to go to a place where he may learn the sciences, have his own wages, aye, and his own person." This case was one in which the three men had violated some local law of the state of Missouri against encouraging slaves to leave their masters for the purpose of going into free states as the national fugitive slave law was not then in existence, and was not enacted until 1850.
[5]. The "slaves" here referred to are explained in an editorial note in the Times and Seasons in which the above correspondence appears (Vol. III, No. 10) to mean children of Mormon parentage still in Missouri—"the children of murdered parents; others of Mormon parents now in this city"—Nauvoo. The charge of their being "slaves" is far-fetched and was made only because of the severe stress of feeling experienced by the Saints when contemplating things that related to Missouri, and some allowance must be made for the bombast, bragadocio and hypocrisy of John C. Bennett.
[6]. Because of its bearing upon the character of John C. Bennett, as also to complete this Dyer-Bennett correspondence, the letter of John C. Bennett to the Prophet in answer to the note of the latter, introducing this whole correspondence, the following communication is inserted.
[7]. It must be remembered that the above report of the Prophet's remarks, as also the report of the King Follett sermon (preached in April, 1844, and which will appear in Volume V of this history), where the same matter of infants being enthroned in power while remaining of the same stature as when on earth, and at the time of their death, is mentioned—were reported in long hand and from memory, so that they are very likely to contain inaccuracies and convey wrong impressions. This matter of children after the resurrection remaining of the same stature as at their death is well known to be such an error. The writer of this note distinctly remembers to have heard the late President Wilford Woodruff, who reported the above sermon, say, that the Prophet corrected the impression that had been made by his King Follett sermon, that children and infants would remain fixed in the stature of their infancy and childhood in and after the resurrection. President Woodruff very emphatically said on the occasion of the subject being agitated about 1888-9, that the prophet taught subsequently to his King Follett sermon that children while resurrected in the stature at which they died would develope to the full stature of men and women after the resurrection; and that the contrary impression created by the report of the Prophet's King Follett sermon was due to a misunderstanding of his remarks and erroneous reporting. In addition to this personal recollection of the writer as to the testimony of the late President Wilford Woodruff, the following testimony of Elder Joseph Horne and his wife, M. Isabella Horne, on the same subject is important. The statements here copied were delivered in the presence of President Angus M. Cannon, of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion, and Elder Arthur Winter, at the residence of Brother Horne, in Salt Lake City, on November 19, 1896, and were reported stenographically by Arthur Winter, the Church official reporter.
Sister M. Isabella Horne said:
"In conversation with the Prophet Joseph Smith once in Nauvoo, the subject of children in the resurrection was broached. I believe it was in Sister Leonora Cannon Taylor's house. She had just lost one of her children, and I had also lost one previously. The Prophet wanted to comfort us, and he told us that we should receive those children in the morning of the resurrection just as we laid them down, in purity and innocence, and we should nourish and care for them as their mothers. He said that children would be raised in the resurrection just as they were laid down, and that they would obtain all the intelligence necessary to occupy thrones, principalities and powers. The idea that I got from what he said was that the children would grow and develop in the Millennium, and that the mothers would have the pleasure of training and caring for them, which they had been deprived of in this life.
"This was sometime after the King Follett funeral, at which I was present."
Brother Joseph Horne said:
"I heard the Prophet Joseph Smith say that mothers should receive their children just as they laid them down, and that they would have the privilege of doing for them what they could not do here, the Prophet remarked: "How would you know them if you did not receive them as you laid them down?" I also got the idea that children would grow and develop after the resurrection, and that the mothers would care for them and train them."