Behold I say unto you, he that denieth these things, knoweth not the gospel of Christ.
For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever; and in Him there is no variableness neither shadow of changing?
THE MAN
Joseph Smith at Nauvoo.
May 15, 1844.
It is by no means improbable that some future text-book, for the use of generations yet unborn, will contain a question something like this: What historical American of the nineteenth century has exerted the most powerful influence upon the destinies of his countrymen? And it is by no means impossible that the answer to that interrogatory may be thus written: JOSEPH SMITH, THE MORMON PROPHET. And the reply, absurd as it doubtless seems to most men now living, may be an obvious commonplace to their descendants. History deals in surprises and paradoxes quite as startling as this. The man who established a religion in this age of free debate, who was and is today accepted by hundreds of thousands as a direct emissary from the Most High—such a rare human being is not to be disposed of by pelting his memory with unsavory epithets. * * * The most vital questions Americans are asking each other today have to do with this man and what he has left us. * * * Burning questions they are, which must give a prominent place in the history of the country to that sturdy self-asserter whom I visited at Nauvoo. Joseph Smith, claiming to be an inspired teacher, faced adversity such as few men have been called to meet, enjoyed a brief season of prosperity such as few men have ever attained, and, finally, forty-three days after I saw him, went cheerfully to a martyr's death. When he surrendered his person to Governor Ford, in order to prevent the shedding of blood, the Prophet had a presentiment of what was before him. "I am going like a lamb to the slaughter," he is reported to have said; "but I am as calm as a summer's morning. I have a conscience void of offense and shall die innocent."
JOSIAH QUINCY'S "FIGURES OF THE PAST."
THE "CHOICE SEER."
In the day of Jesus, every act and every circumstance of His life was ridiculed and belittled by his jealous enemies. But the record of His career, from which the present world of Christians makes up its judgment of Him, was not written until all insignificant or paltry things had been forgotten; and now His character, illuminated by the eternal sunshine of heaven, stands outlined against the blue vastness of the past in sublime simplicity. Let us view Joseph Smith in the same light—see him as he towered in the full radiance of his labors; see him the reconciler of divergent sects and doctrines, the oracle of the Almighty to all nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples.
Joseph Smith had been a retiring youth—the Spirit made him bold to declare to rulers and potentates and all mankind, the Gospel again revealed. He had been a humble farmer lad—Divine authority sat so becomingly upon him that men looked at him with reverent awe. He had been unlearned in the great things of art and science—he walked with God until human knowledge was to his eye an open book, the Celestial light beamed through his mind.