Two or three weeks later, he prophesied in the presence of Elder Orson Hyde and others that a struggle in which much blood would flow would begin in South Carolina, and would probably arise through the slave question. This was a repetition of the revelation which he had received and announced more than ten years earlier.
A delegation of young men from New York came to see Joseph at Nauvoo in February, 1843, and with great respect solicited his views concerning Millerism and the coming of Christ, and the day of judgment, which Miller had fixed for April 3, 1843. The Prophet warned them that Miller was in error; that before Christ should come the prophecies must all be fulfilled, the sun be darkened and the moon turned to blood. A Chicago paper of that time published a certificate of one Hyrum Reading, of Ogle County, Illinois, stating that he had seen the sign of the Son of Man; and the editor of the paper declares that Joseph Smith had met his match. The Prophet responded that Mr. Reading had not seen the sign of the Son of Man, as foretold by Jesus, neither had any man nor will any man, until after the fulfilment of the prophecies; and he declared:
Hear this, oh earth! the Lord will not come to reign over the righteous in this world in 1848, nor until everything for the bridegroom is ready.
Joseph was once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Savior, when he heard a voice saying:
Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man. Therefore let this suffice and trouble me no more.
In recording this divine utterance, the Prophet says that he was left thus without being able to decide whether this coming referred to the millennium or to some previous appearing, or whether he should die and thus see the face of Christ. Joseph would have been eighty-five years old on the 23rd day of December, 1890; and he says:
I believe the coming of the Son of Man will not be any sooner than that time.
The question was proposed at a lyceum which Joseph attended whether the kingdom of God was set up before the day of Pentecost or not till then? The Prophet's answer was recorded at some length by Apostle Wilford Woodruff from whose synopsis the following paragraphs are taken:
Some say the kingdom of God was not set up until the day of Pentecost, and that John did not preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; but I say, in the name of the Lord, that the kingdom of God was set up on the earth from the days of Adam to the present time.
Whenever there has been a righteous man on earth unto whom God revealed His word and gave power and authority to administer in His name, and where there is a priest of God—a minister who has power and authority from God to administer in the ordinances of the gospel and officiate in the Priesthood of God, there is the kingdom of God; and, in consequence of rejecting the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Prophets whom God has sent, the judgments of God have rested upon people, cities and nations, in various ages of the world, which was the case with the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which were destroyed for rejecting the prophets.
Now I will give my testimony. I care not for man. I speak boldly and faithfully, and with authority. How is it with the kingdom of God? Where did the kingdom of God begin? Where there is no kingdom of God, there is no salvation. What constitutes the kingdom of God? Where there is a prophet, a priest or a righteous man unto whom God gives His oracles, there is the kingdom of God; and where the oracles of God are not, there the kingdom of God is not.
In these remarks, I have no allusion to the kingdoms of the earth. We will keep the laws of the land; we do not speak against them; we never have spoken against them; though we can scarcely mention the state of Missouri and our persecutions there, but that the cry goes forth that we are guilty of treason, which is false. We speak of the kingdom of God on the earth; not the kingdoms of men.
These emphatic statements show the loyal position which the Prophet maintained toward his country, and the view he had concerning governments in general.