The people who thus became associated with Joseph were generally his seniors, but there was no hesitation on their part in yielding him the respect due to the representative of Christ on earth, and they united in giving him a devotion which supported and blessed him from hour to hour. Joseph was no longer an uncouth village lad, for the exalted course of his life during the years in which he had walked under God's guidance had elevated him intellectually until he was already the peer of any man. No doubt at this hour he was lacking, as he had been in his earlier youth, in the technical teachings of the schools; but he had a deeper knowledge and a finer judgment than any possessed by the most favored of all the students of the colleges. As a boy he may have been no more potent in swaying the feelings and judgment of those with whom he came in contact than were his fellow youths; but as a man of God, clothed upon with the Priesthood, filled with zeal, noble in carriage, majestic in deportment, no person could view him without bestowing veneration. Such is the testimony of all who knew him at this time. It is true that he had not yet received that broad culture, he had not penetrated to the depths of theology, astronomy, and all the higher sciences which govern the kingdom of Christ, and unto which the Spirit of God eventually led him; but from his almost transparent face there shone a light of such beauty and power, and from his lips there came such words of divine promise to mankind, that his associates accorded to him a greater respect than could have been elicited by the most learned minister of earthly churches, or the most powerful ruler of earthly kingdoms.
The men who were thus associated with him, and who thus freely tendered him, as the vicegerent of God on earth, the highest devotion of their souls, were not naturally enthusiasts in the matter of religion; nor were they men who could be deceived. They were of Puritan ancestry and demanded the conviction of their reason before yielding their faith.
That reason once convinced, they were men of such exalted courage that they dared the ridicule of the pulpit and the anger of mobs, to voice their convictions and to yield their adherence to the gospel. The witnesses to the Book of Mormon, and the men who supported Joseph in his fulfillment of the divine command to organize the Church of Christ in these last days, have left no room for a doubt of their sincerity. Conservative in character, thrifty in habits, they were not of a class who would venture from any slight motive to excite the hatred of a world which they knew would deem itself outraged by their avowal. Each one of them knew enough of the early experiences of Joseph to feel certain that he, too, would become the object of clerical ridicule and the vindictive persecution of the masses, incited by jealous religious leaders. At every step since Joseph's encounter with the intolerant spirit of the community in which he lived, he had been obliged to call upon the Lord to aid him with more than mortal courage, to meet and withstand the cruel assaults of his enemies. In thus joining him, the witnesses and early members of the Church provoked the hostility already raging against him, and they were obliged to seek the same source for the same reinforcement of their natural strength, moral and physical.
In this inception of the work its character was defined to a marvelous degree. Joseph himself, and much less his companions, may not have fully understood the divine simplicity and sublime comprehensiveness of the organization of the Church of the Lamb of God which he was commanded to effect upon that memorable day; but their minds were enlightened by the Spirit of God, and by the gift of prophecy they were inspired to foretell the grandeur of the results that would be accomplished through this organization. Standing at this distance of time from that day, the observer can clearly see how beautifully adapted it is for the purposes for which it is designed. Suitable in the beginning for the government of a Church of six members, and for branches of the Church composed of any number of members, experience has demonstrated that it is capable of furnishing heavenly government for the entire race of man. Coming from Deity, it possesses divine perfection and admits of magnificent and infinite expansion. No officers necessary for the correct government of the Church and for the growth and full development of its members were omitted, and their spheres of operation and labor were so well defined that, while they retain the Spirit of the Lord, there can be no conflict or even friction between them. Fully recognizing the free agency of man, the Lord designed that the officers should derive their power to control, and the system its wonderful elasticity and strength, from the cheerfully-yielded obedience of its members. In this way the requisite authority to govern, the power to enforce and maintain order, and complete personal freedom are harmoniously blended in the organization of the Church as revealed to the Prophet Joseph.
The gospel, as revealed in part and promised in full to him at that early day, was a pure and simple gift to all men upon the face of the earth who would make themselves worthy. It neither contemplated unrighteous espionage of thought and personal action, nor unholy servitude or worship of man by man. The barbarity of power, which characterized the apostate churches which swayed the world of Christendom for so many long centuries, did not exist in this divine plan for the salvation of the human race. Such gloomy tenets as infantile damnation or accountability, and the consigning of the soul to a place of eternal misery and torment from which there could be no deliverance and to which there could be no alleviation, embodied in the systems of religion which were taught and vouched for by their teachers as divine, were absent from this simple gospel. At the time of the organization of His Church, God made known His gospel in all the simplicity and fullness of truth, sublime and symmetrical as taught by the Redeemer, not as it had been perverted for ages. All the dark and cruel mysteries which had enshrouded so-called religion were swept away. Joseph had learned by most glorious and satisfactory experience that it was possible for man to approach and know God for himself. He taught his fellows that this is the true foundation of the gospel of salvation; that it is every human being's privilege to lift his eyes to God, to obtain revelation and every good gift from Him through obedience to His laws. Who can measure the great blossoming of human character which has already appeared, and the rich fruitage which the coming generations will yet yield through the enforcement of this grand truth? One of the accusations brought against the Savior, and for which His enemies sought to stone Him, was that He, being a man, made Himself equal with God. To a generation such as they, from whom God was so far removed that all communication between them had ceased, such a relationship between man and the great Creator, as the Lord Jesus taught as existing, was offensive and blasphemous. It was this elevating and ennobling truth that the Prophet Joseph taught to the world. He taught a gospel of man's worship to God, and not man's servitude to his fellow. One of its grand principles is that each soul must be accountable to its Creator for its deeds; and no person who has not reached the years of individual accountability is condemned for the non-performance of ceremonies or ordinances which he can neither understand nor attend to. Infants are all saved in Christ; and need no penance, no baptism, no church membership. But a man who has heard the word of God is personally responsible for his own life and must bear the consequences of its rejection in his own person.
The full recognition of God's authority as bestowed by Him and man's equality with his fellow-man constitute the vitality of the Kingdom of God. But Satan prompts man to establish creeds of man-worship, in which priestcraft, as opposed to priesthood, prevails. He appeals to the avarice and ambition of men and divides society into classes, making worldly learning, the possession of wealth, and the "accident of birth," the distinctions which command respect and honor. The theology of the churches, which flourished in the region where Joseph dwelt from boyhood to maturity, flowed from the muddy stream. But he was not influenced by it. Through the revelations of Jesus, the theology which he was inspired to teach was utterly unlike any system taught by man.
Instead of being lifted up by the favor which had been shown to him, Joseph was made to feel his own weaknesses. Chosen to be a prophet and the leader of God's people, he was conscious that he was only human, subject to human temptations and human frailties. Having the honesty and courage inspired by the Spirit of the Lord, he dared to confess this openly; and, under the same inspiration, acknowledge his transgression and make his contrition known. He was not above any law which applied to his fellow-man. Of his responsibility to God and his brethren of the Church, he was required by the law revealed through himself to the Church, to give as strict an account as any other member. They who participated with him in authority owed it not to him as an individual, but to the eternal power to which they were alike responsible.
The grandeur of Joseph's character is most shown in his lack of pretension. Christ declared Himself the head of the Church; and though Joseph was to be our Savior's representative here on earth, he exacted no homage from his fellow-believers, but only such respect as the gospel required them to pay. The thought of gaining glory for himself appears never to have entered his mind. His conduct in the beginning, in execution of the requirements of the Lord, was but a type of his whole life. The commands of God came through him to earth, and he gave them voice firmly and fearlessly. Speaking as a prophet of God under the influence of the Spirit, he brooked no opposition; but in his personal relations with his fellow-Apostles and Elders he gave them, according to their station and their deserts, as much deference as he asked, or was willing to receive for himself. This characteristic gave him power in the beginning. Only he who knows how to obey is worthy to command; only he who yields to others their due can expect compliance with his own order, however lawful it may be.
From this time of the organization of the Church, the revelations of God have come constantly, through Christ's chosen representative, to guide, to instruct, to admonish and to warn the people; and from this source the body of the Saints has received its daily life.