The Women of Mormondom

by Edward W. Tullidge

THE MOTHER OF THE PROPHET—THE GIFTS OF INSPIRATION AND WORKING OF MIRACLES INHERENT IN HER FAMILY—FRAGMENTS OF HER NARRATIVE.

First among the chosen women of the latter-day dispensation comes the mother of the Prophet, to open this divine drama.

It is one of our most beautiful and suggestive proverbs that "great men have great mothers." This cannot but be peculiarly true of a great prophet whose soul is conceptive of a new dispensation.

Prophecy is of the woman. She endows her offspring with that heaven-born gift.

The father of Joseph was a grand patriarchal type. He was the Abraham of the Church, holding the office of presiding patriarch. To this day he is remembered and spoken of by the early disciples with the profoundest veneration and filial love, and his patriarchal blessings, given to them, are preserved and valued as much as are the patriarchal blessings of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob valued by their own race.

But it is the mother of the Prophet who properly leads in opening the testament of the women of Mormondom. She was a prophetess and seeress born. The gift of prophecy and the power to work miracles also inhered in the family of Lucy Mack, (her maiden name), and the martial spirit which distinguished her son, making him a prophet-general, was quite characteristic of her race. Of her brother, Major Mack, she says:

"My brother was in the city of Detroit in 1812, the year in which Hull surrendered the territory to the British crown. My brother, being somewhat celebrated for his prowess, was selected by General Hull to take the command of a company as captain. After a short service in this office he was ordered to surrender. (Hull's surrender to the British). At this his indignation was aroused to the highest pitch. He broke his sword across his knee, and throwing it into the river, exclaimed that he would never submit to such a disgraceful compromise while the blood of an American continued to flow in his veins."

Lucy Mack's father, Solomon Mack, was a soldier in the American revolution. He entered the army at the age of twenty-one, in the year 1755, and in the glorious struggle of his country for independence he enlisted among the patriots in 1776. With him were his two boys, Jason and Stephen, the latter being the same who afterwards broke his sword and cast it into the river rather than surrender it to the British.

But that which is most interesting here is the seeric gift coupled with the miracle-working power of "Mother Lucy's" race. Hers was a "visionary" family, in the main, while her elder brother, Jason, was a strange evangelist, who wandered about during his lifetime, by sea and land, preaching the gospel and working miracles. This Jason even attempted to establish a body of Christian communists. Of him she says:

"Jason, my oldest brother, was a studious and manly boy. Before he had attained his sixteenth year he became what was then called a 'seeker,' and believing that by prayer and faith the gifts of the gospel, which were enjoyed by the ancient disciples of Christ, might be attained, he labored almost incessantly to convert others to the same faith. He was also of the opinion that God would, at some subsequent period, manifest His power, as He had anciently done, in signs and wonders. At the age of twenty he became a preacher of the gospel."