CHAPTER 3.
A REMARKABLE PREPARATION.
"Coming Events."—Wilford Woodruff's Interest in Religion.—Existing Religious Denominations.—Teachings of Scripture.—Father Mason, a Prophet.—Peculiar Process of Preparation.
Wilford Woodruff belonged to a group of men whose advent into the world characterized the first two decades of the nineteenth century. Though in their own day, humble and obscure and held in contempt by mankind generally, their importance and the work accomplished by them grow in significance to the Latter-day Saints who are and have been for the past half century the greatest history makers in the world. Such men as Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, and Joseph F. Smith, whose administration of the affairs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has given them a prominent place in the world as well as in the Church, grow in historical magnitude as time goes on. Their respective administrations constitute distinguished landmarks in the history of a great people.
There has been a mysterious something about North America, and indeed of the whole American continent, that has made it not only inviting to discoverers and adventurers, but an asylum to those who sought enlarged religious freedom and the development of institutions in harmony with the ideals of progressive religious thought. What has been more remarkable to the welfare of this nation than the character of the men, who, standing upon foreign shores looked forward to it as a land of grand opportunities, were the men, the early patriots who gave to its government the highest wisdom of the age, and to social institution a broad foundation upon which all classes could securely rest their hopes, their ambitions, and their religious convictions.
The institutions of our country have nevertheless grown as time went on, and little by little conditions derogatory to the well-being and happiness of the people have given way to higher and better standards of life. The opposition to slavery and its downfall enlarged the conceptions of individual liberty and of human rights. The traditions of ages have given way before the progress of modern enlightenment, and the country has afforded better opportunities for progressive and changing institutions than any other nation of the civilized world. The whole drift of American history has been in the direction of religious enlightenment and political freedom. True, such enlightenment and freedom have met with stubborn resistance and have cost the best blood of the nation. The United States has been a country peculiarly marked for the greatest human endeavor. It has not, however, reached the acme of its possibilities nor has its work, however progressive, reached a finished state. If the lessons of the past in American history are important in any one respect, more than another, it is in the great truth that it is to be the standard bearer, and the first in religion and government.
In religion the nation is brought face to face daily more and more with the great religious problem known to the civilized world as Mormonism. The men who were instrumentalities of that new religion grow in importance as it makes its way in religious and theological history. The lives therefore of such men as Wilford Woodruff not only have a distinct place in the lives and thoughts of their religious associates, but will also have an important position in the future history and development of religious thought.
How such men as Wilford Woodruff came upon the stage at the particular time in the history of the Church, and what external influences brought them into its folds are matter of peculiar interest to every student of Church history. What he himself thought of the new movement and how he was prepared to receive it is given here and there throughout his private journals in a manner to make the story of his life one of the most interesting in all the annals of the Church.
He says: "At an early age my mind began to be exercised upon religious subjects, but I never made a profession of religion until 1830 when I was twenty-three years of age. I did not then join any church for the reason that I could not find a body of people, denomination, or church that had for its doctrine, faith, and practices those principles, ordinances, and gifts which constituted the gospel of Jesus Christ as taught by Him and His apostles. Neither did I find anywhere the manifestations of the Holy Ghost with its attendant gifts and graces. When I conversed with the ministers of the various denominations or sects, they would always tell me that prophets, apostles, revelations, healing, etc., were given to establish Jesus Christ and His doctrine, but that they have ever since been done away with because no longer needed in the Church and Kingdom of God. Such a declaration I never could and never would believe. I did believe, however, that revelation, the gifts and graces, and the faith once delivered to the Saints—a faith which they have enjoyed in all ages when God has had an acknowledged people on the earth—could be done away with only through the disobedience and unbelief of the children of men. I believed every gift, office, and blessing to be just as necessary now to constitute the true Church of Christ and Kingdom of God as in any age of the world.