Mr. Josiah Quincy, an eminent American scholar, in his interesting work entitled "Figures of the Past," gives his estimation of the great prophet in these words:
"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 to-day 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 to-day 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."
Hon. John A. Cockerill, a United States Senator, in an article published in the Cosmopolitan, a New York magazine, says, in reference to Utah, and its people, and their leader Brigham Young:
"Thus, within the short space of half a century, a great State has sprung up in the land, as it were, before our eyes. Its fame, with that of its founder, has become world-wide. . . It is seldom given to the founder of a state that the body which he has organized shall grow to such marvelous completeness and maturity within fifty years."
PROPHECY ABOUT WAR.
The following revelation was given to Joseph Smith on the 25th of December, 1832:
"'Verily, thus saith the Lord, concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls.
"The days will come that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at that place;
"For behold, the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States, and the Southern States will call on other nations, even the nation of Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall also call upon other nations, in order to defend themselves against other nations; and thus war shall be poured out upon all nations."
FULFILLED TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS AFTERWARDS.
The great civil war between the southern and northern States of America was a literal fulfillment of the prophetic utterance, so far as it referred to the first conflict. That war began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, on the 12th day of April, 1861, over twenty-eight years after the prediction was made, and it terminated in the "death and misery of many souls," for the loss of life it caused is estimated at fully 1,000,000 men. History shows that the Southern States did call upon Great Britain and other nations for assistance, as predicted by the Prophet.