After working two months in the harvest field to earn his passage money, Joseph with other elders, sailed steerage passage, on the bark Yankee, for the islands. As soon as the ship was clear from the wharf, the passengers were lined up on the deck and their names read off to see if there were any stowaways. When the purser called, "Joseph Smith" the captain asked, "Any relation to old Joe Smith?" "No, sir," was the prompt answer, "I never had a relative by that name; but if you had reference to the Prophet Joseph Smith, I am proud to say, he was my uncle." "Oh, I see," said the captain, and he did see a man who had the nerve and manhood to demand that proper respect be shown to the name of the Prophet, whom he loved and honored.
Within one hundred days after landing on the islands, he was preaching the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Hawaiian language. After six months' labor on Maui, he was called to be the President of the Molokai Island Conference. Here he made the acquaintance and won the friendship of a wealthy gentleman by the name of Meyers. Stopping, by invitation, a few days with him, he met Jules Remy, a French savant and author, who was making a circuit of the world. With six companions he visited the wild wonderland of Molokai, the Reverend Mr. Dwight, Presbyterian pastor of the islands, acting as guide and interpreter. While all were seated around the supper table, Mr. Remy asked Joseph if the report was true "that the Mormon people were in rebellion against the United States?" Before Joseph could reply, the parson chipped in, "Yes, Brigham Young has always been a traitor, and now he has not only rebelled, but he has ordered his people to massacre all the Gentiles in the Territory. Already they have murdered over a hundred innocent men, women and children at a place called Mountain Meadows." Joseph sprang from his chair, and seizing Mr. Dwight by his collar, lifted him to his feet and said, "Brigham Young is not a traitor, the Mormon people are not in rebellion, but you are a liar, and you will take back what you have said, or I will drive your teeth down your throat." Mr. Remy acted the man and came to Joseph's assistance by affirming the question was to Mr. Smith, and that Mr. Dwight was out of place, and that he should apologize, which he did, and from that time on there was at least one Mormon elder that Mr. Dwight treated with respect.
In relating these incidents where Joseph resented insults and untruthful accusations, I do not want any one to infer that he was of a quarrelsome disposition, for he was not. In all of my acquaintance with him, I never knew him to be the aggressor nor to be tantalizing in the least degree, but he was plain and positive. To me, from a boy, he lived in harmony with the Spirit of God, and I have good reason for believing that his father and his Uncle Joseph watched over him continuously, and when Joseph was nigh to death with typhoid fever at President Hammond's on the island of Maui, I feel sure that those two exalted brothers, walking hand in hand, visited and ministered unto him, whereby his life was preserved and he was enabled to complete his earth life mission, leaving on record a testimony of one of the purest lives ever lived by man.
Bishop Nibley told of a railroad incident where Joseph, by listening to an invincible warning, was kept out of danger. I want to recall the scene at Lahaina. In 1864 Apostles Ezra T. Benson, Lorenzo Snow, and Elders Joseph F. Smith, William W. Cluff and Alma L. Smith were sent to the islands to put a stop to Walter M. Gibson's mischief making among the Hawaiian Saints. When the ship reached Lahaina, (an unsafe harbor) the incoming wave swells were so heavy that the ship had to anchor nearly a mile from the land. In going ashore the captain invited the elders to ride with him in his boat, but Joseph declined, he was so strongly impressed with a feeling of danger that he pleaded with his brethren to wait until the native boats should come; but the brethren were anxious to be ashore and went. The result, the boat was capsized and Apostle Snow was drowned, and it was a miracle that he was resuscitated and his life saved.
In the early days of the Hawaiian mission our elders met with much opposition and with several severe mobbings. At one time in Honolulu, a crowd of ruffians mobbed the aged President, Philip B. Lewis. The harmless old man was knocked down and dragged by the heels, his head bumping on the cobble rock pavement until the ruffians thought he was dead; then they flung him into the gutter, while they went to a saloon to celebrate the achievement. A carpenter, a new convert to the faith by the name of Burnham, from the roof of a house that he was shingling, saw the last brutal act of the mob and gave the leader a severe thrashing. He whipped the brute so thoroughly that it put an end to the mobbing in Honolulu. The manly fight put up by Burnham endeared him to us, and when we returned to the islands in 1864 we found that Brother Burnham had died leaving the family, (Sister Burnham and three children) in poverty, homeless. After the Apostles had cut Mr. Gibson off the Church, Joseph was appointed President of the mission. With the assistance of Elders William W. Cluff, Alma L. Smith, Benjamin Cluff and John R. Young, all the islands were visited and the branches reorganized; then Joseph F. Smith, William W. Cluff and John R. Young were released to return home. At that time it cost $108.00 for a ticket from San Francisco to Salt Lake. President Young sent the money necessary to pay our passage home, but Joseph said, "I will not go and leave Sister Burnham. It was finally decided to go the southern route as our money would take us to San Bernardino; from there we could in all probability, work our way home as teamsters, while Sister Burnham could find a home with the Saints of that place.
For a change we sailed for home cabin passage. Upon arrival at San Francisco we found a telegram awaiting Joseph, requesting him to come home as soon as possible. Bear in mind Joseph was an elder, and a financially poor one at that, as his whole life had been in the mission field and he was the last man on earth to ask for help. What could we do? In council it was thought best for Joseph and William to go by stage, while I with the Burnham family would go by San Bernardino. And now comes the tempter. There were living in San Francisco quite a number of relatives by marriage to the Smith family, and some of them were wealthy. They held a family reunion and invited Joseph to attend. He asked me to accompany him, which I did. We met them at Mr.—'s; some twenty all told; six or eight strong, healthy looking men. A few stories were told, then the conversation drifted into personal experiences and present home conditions. They pitied Joseph and offered to deed him a good home if he would cut loose from the "Utah Mormons" and stay with them, his true friends. He declined, and said if they would excuse him he would bid them good night. All rose up, and then the storm broke. Their spokesman said in substance, "Joseph, we are disappointed in you; we thought you were a Smith, but any man who will come and go at the command of Brigham Young, the man who connived at the murder of your father and Uncle Joseph, has not a drop of Smith's blood in his veins." Joseph: "Do I understand you to say that Brigham Young connived at the murder of the Prophet Joseph Smith?" "Yes, and I can prove the assertion." Then there leaped from Joseph's lips the strongest expression that ever I heard come from them. "You are a damned infernal liar! Joseph Smith never had a truer friend than Brigham Young." To me, how grand he looked. He seemed to expand until he towered head and shoulders above his opponents. While their faces scowled with anger, yet like the tempest tossed waves of the ocean, whose fury had been spent at the foot of the boulder, they recede, leaving the beach cleaner and whiter than before the storm.
How I loved that man's manliness; he not a Smith? The very tension of the rigid muscles proclaimed him the embodiment of the chivalrous Macks and Smiths.
Over forty years ago, while laboring as a missionary in the London Conference, I wrote in my journal:
I knew Joseph F. Smith in life's rosy morn,
When herding cows and hoeing corn;
And though he worked early and late,
Yet he never murmured at his fate,
But smiled to think that his strong arm
Brought wheat and corn to his mother's barn.His first mark made I remember well;
'Twas when he flogged Philander Bell.
A champion then, for innocence and youth,
As he is now for liberty and truth.
If plain his speech, and strong in boyish strife,
I doubt if he could mend the history of his life.The years of trial on Hawaii's land
Were more than wiser heads would stand.
Poi, paakia, poverty and shame
Were all endured for the blessed Savior's name.
The crime and faith, and ulcerated sores
Opened to view, bleeding at every pore,
Tried the metal, proved one's pride.
Then was the day of choosing sides.
Then was the hour to begin, and he
Pulled off his coat and waded in.We need not urge him to improve,
He seeks, as Joseph did, light from above,
And God has given strength to Hyrum's son,
Speeding him on the race so well begun;
For unto him a charge is truly given
To lead erring men from sin to heaven;
To realms of glory, where truth divine
Enlightens life with joy sublime.
But I will leave to pens abler than mine
To paint the beauties of that heavenly clime.I choose to feast on more substantial food.
One to be great, must first be truly good.
The precious clouds that bless our vales with rain
Descend from lofty peaks and kiss the plains,
So God, Himself, in plainness said to man,
"Blessed are the meek," 'T am the great I Am,"
And while His voice echoed from Sinai's peak,
He talked with Moses, the meekest of the meek.
Then look to Christ, and note the keywords given
To lead men back to God and Heaven.Brother nobly and well thou hast begun,
Now hold the fort until the victory's won,
And when the smoke and din of war is past
Your works and name on history's page shall last.
And I feel in all my being that Joseph F. Smith held the fort and won the victory, giving him a seat with his Prophet Uncle and his martyred father in the mansions of our Heavenly Father.