While Joseph extended a hearty welcome to the Doctor to come to Commerce, he by no means held out any very flattering inducements to him, as may be seen by his letters in answer to Bennett's expressing his determination to join the Saints. The Prophet said:
I have no doubt that you would be of great service to this community in practicing your profession, as well as those other abilities of which you are in possession. Though to devote your time and abilities in the cause of truth and a suffering people, may not be the means of exalting you in the eyes of this generation, or securing you the riches of this world, yet by so doing you may rely on the approval of Jehovah, "that blessing which maketh rich and addeth no sorrow." * * * * * * Therefore, my general invitation is, let all who will come, come and partake of the poverty of Nauvoo, freely. I should be disposed to give you a special invitation to come as early as possible, believing you will be of great service to us. However, you must make your own arrangements according to your circumstances. Were it possible for you to come here this season to suffer affliction with the people of God, no one will be more pleased to give you a cordial welcome than myself.
Surely this was frank enough, and ought to have dispelled from the Doctor's mind all thoughts of winning worldly fame, or gratifying vain ambition, by linking his fortunes with those of the Church of Jesus Christ. The whole course of the Prophet here outlined, and as further set forth in the parts of this volume dealing with the case of John C. Bennett, vindicates him and the Church from any complicity with the wickedness and vileness of that man.
Bennett's attempted vindication of his course of procedure, and his defense against the action of the Church in exposing his wickedness and excommunicating him is, that from the beginning he came amongst the Saints as a spy, to become acquainted with their alleged treasonable designs against several of the western states, for the purpose of exposing them; all which is set forth in a note at pp. 79, 80 of this volume. All this was ridiculous; and the whole presentation of this view of the matter in his book under the pompous title, The History of the Saints; or An Expose of Joe Smith and Mormonism, [A] convinced nobody, since Bennett's insincerity and putridity of mind is evidenced upon every page of his repulsive book. "The role of traitor," says H. H. Bancroft, in his history of Utah, dealing with John C. Bennett:—
The role of traitor is not one which in any wise brings credit to the performer, either from one side or the other. However great the service he may render us, we cannot but feel that he is false hearted and vile. Many of the apostates, though they may not have written books, declare that they joined the sect only to learn their secrets and then expose them. These are the most contemptible of all. There may be cases, where a young or inexperienced person, through ignorance or susceptibility, has been carried away for a time contrary to the dictates of cooler judgment; but the statements of such persons are justly regarded with more or less suspicion. Far better is it, far more honest and praiseworthy, for him who, having unwittingly made a mistake, seeks to rectify it, to go his way and say nothing about it; for if he talks of writing a book for the good of others, as a warning, and that they may avoid his errors, few will believe him. "If he has proved traitor once," they say, "he will deceive again; and if he is sincere, we cannot more than half believe him, for such an individual is never sure of himself." John C. Bennett, general, doctor, methodist preacher, and quack, is from his own showing a bad man. He devotes some fifty pages to the vindication of his character, which would not be necessary were he honest; other fifty are given to defaming his late worshipful patron Joseph Smith, which would never have been written were he true. When a man thrusts in your face three-score certificates of his good character, each signed by from one to a dozen persons, you may know that he is a very great rascal. Nor are we disappointed here. This author is a charlatan, pure and simple; such was he when he joined the Mormons, and before and after. We may credit him fully when he says, "I never believed in them or their doctrines;" although in a letter to Dr. Dyer, dated Nauvoo, Jan. 20, 1842, he declares: "My heart is filled with indignation, and my blood boils within me, when I contemplate the vast injustice and cruelty which Missouri has meted out to the great philanthropist and devout Christian, General Joseph Smith, and his honest and faithful adherents." When, however, he affects patriotism and lofty devotion to the welfare of his fellow-men, pretending to have joined the society in order to frustrate "a daring and colossal scheme of rebellion and usurpation throughout the north-western states, . . . . a despotic military and religions empire, the head of which, as emperor and pope, was to be Joseph Smith," we know that the writer is well aware that it is all nonsense. Nor do we believe that he was induced to print his book "by a desire to expose the enormous iniquities which have been perpetrated by one of the grossest and most infamous impostors that ever appeared upon the face of the earth." We have heard and are still hearing so much of that kind of talk from some of the worst men in the community that it is becoming somewhat stale, and if the general really does not know better than this why he wrote his book, perhaps he will excuse me for telling him that it was, first, for notoriety; second, for money; and third, in order to make people think him a better and greater man than he is. When a man's ambition is pitched so low, it is a pity that he should not have the gratification of success. Bravely, then, the general proceeded to offer himself on the altar of his country, "to overthrow the impostor and expose his iniquity" by "professing himself a convert to his doctrines;" for "the fruition of his hopeful project would, of course, have been preceded by plunder, devastation, and bloodshed, and by all the countless horrors which invariably accompany civil war." We are still more impressed when we read: "I was quite aware of the danger I ran"—that of being kicked out of some back door—"but none of these things deterred me." Without wasting more time and space upon the man, we are well enough prepared to place a proper estimate upon his statements, particularly when we take into account that, in May of the very year in which his book was published, he went before Alderman Wells and made affidavit that Joseph Smith was an honest, virtuous, sincere, high-minded, and patriotic man. He says himself that he solemnly swore to be true to the Mormons and not reveal their secrets, and now in breaking that oath he has the audacity to ask us to regard him as an honest and truthful man! In some measure, at least, the statements of such men as this, taken up by the press and people, and reiterated throughout the land, have given the Latter-day Saints a worse name than they deserve. Some of his charges are too coarse and filthy for repetition. [B]
[Footnote A: Published in Boston, 1842]
[Footnote B: Banecroft's History of Utah, pp. 150, 151 note.]
The only description I have seen of Dr. Bennett is given in the Essex County Washingtonian, published in Salem, Massachusetts, and that is contained in the issue of the fifteenth of September, 1842. According to that description he was a man of about five feet nine inches high, well formed, black hair sprinkled with gray, dark complexion, a rather thin face, and black restless eyes.
He finally died in obscurity, and also, it is said, in poverty, (Cannon's Life of Joseph Smith, p. 377).