His conceptions of God made religion a simple thing, as simple as it was wonderful. He seldom argued religion, he never proved the existence of God, he rarely explained obscure meanings of Holy Writ. To him God was the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. The relationship of man to his Maker was set forth on the first pages of the Bible. God made man in his own image; male and female created He them. That God had talked to Adam in the garden of Eden was no myth, was no mystery. He had talked to others. He would talk to men again. Nothing satisfied his spiritual cravings short of an actual communication between heaven and earth. For such a communication he was looking, hoping, praying. When it came, it was as clear to his understanding as the rays of light at noonday sun. His whole being was illuminated by the new revelation. However, he put it to the test; he measured it in the light of Scripture; tested it by individual experiences, and it was in perfect harmony with his spiritual and intellectual being; and when once he put his hand to the plow, he never looked back. No doubt ever troubled him; no misgivings ever dampened his ardor. Thenceforth he never questioned the truth of a divine call to the children of this age any more than he questioned his own existence.
It is difficult in such a man to draw a line between his spiritual and his physical life. Certain it is, he made no distinction. Everything that touched divine purpose was to him a part of his religion. If he preached, he preached in the name of God; if he dug ditches and tilled the earth, it was equally in obedience to a divine command. He was just as devout with the scythe or the sickle as he was with the hymn book or in the pulpit. When one therefore speaks of the spiritual characteristics of such a man, he speaks of the whole man; and if Wilford Woodruff's spiritual nature were merely a characteristic, religion might have been thought of in him as an incident, a part of his life. It was his whole life; for it was measured in terms of his relationship with his God—that relationship he recognized everywhere throughout a remarkable and unique life.
Those best acquainted with the life and habits of Wilford Woodruff will find it difficult, if not wholly impossible, to call to mind any circumstance of unoccupied moments in all their acquaintanceship with him. He was a man of medium height, of a robust nature, heavy set, and of unbounded nervous energy. Those who glorify work and exalt its importance in the divine economy of man find in him an example of the highest type.
He loved work, not alone for its own sake, but because it was associated with divine command. Nor was it to him merely a means of getting on in the world, of adding conveniences and comfort to his own life as well as to those dependent upon him; to him it was a blessing, a privilege, an opportunity which he always availed himself of whenever his calling would permit. Nor was he discriminating in the kind of work he did. He took up whatever was at hand to be done. His toil in the canyons, his sweat in the harvest field, his travels upon the plains were all important parts in divine economy and he performed every labor of life with as much zeal as he was wont to exercise in promulgating the word of God. He was not a worker in the ordinary sense of the word; for in work he always set himself about to accomplish extraordinary tasks.
Those who remember him in the pioneer days of Utah call to mind his unusual physical powers when compared with other men. "I have seen him," said John A. Woolf of Cardston, Canada, "feed a threshing machine with bundles from a stack, when three ordinary men complained of the task. He was never particular where he worked, usually he got in the most disagreeable place about a thresher in order to favor those with whom he worked. When he might have chosen his place, he went to the chaff-pen where the smut and dirt were almost unbearable. I never knew a harder worker than Wilford Woodruff."
He could turn from one occupation to another without the least apparent effort. He would toil assiduously in the harvest field, and with scarcely a moment's notice be ready to receive the dignitaries of the nation that might happen to visit Salt Lake City while he was thus engaged. To sweat, was a divine command as much so as to pray; and in his life he exemplified in the highest degree that simple Christian life that makes for the physical, mental, and moral well-being of man. He believed sincerely in the moral supremacy of manual toil. He loved it and enjoyed it.
Whenever in the midst of his public ministries there came to him an opportunity to retire to his farm, he went to it with all the energy of his marvelous physical endurance. His love of toil produced in his life what it does in the lives of most men of similar habits, a simplicity, a democracy, and the spirit of universal brotherhood. To him there were no commonplace tasks. All that he did was important to his own exaltation in this life and in the world to come. His love of labor penetrated the veil and admitted him to the world beyond wherein he saw God-given opportunities to work. An idle, self-sufficient life in the next world was as abhorrent to his nature as the ordinary conceptions of purgatory. The thought that in the great beyond men should have an unwaning and an undiminished endurance in the industry of an eternity was glorious to his mind.
In this age when men are shirking physical tasks in the industrial world in pursuit of occupations that are as free as possible from bodily exertions, his life stands out as a beautiful example of simplicity and vigor. No man ever did more in the Church to exalt work and put upon it the impress of divine command than Wilford Woodruff; and he was as unostentatious in physical toil as he was in every other occupation which he honestly and faithfully pursued.
In the broadest and highest sense of the term, Wilford Woodruff may be designated as truly the friend of mankind; but within that broader friendship there were intimacies and confidences which he carried with him from his earlier days through the remainder of life. He, like most men of a strong character and loving disposition, had his special friends—friends whose spirit and manner of life were congenial to him—friends whose religious practices and thoughts were in harmony with his own aspirations.
With him, however, friends were not selected because of their station in life; they were among all classes, the humblest as well as the highest; indeed, it is doubtful whether Wilford Woodruff ever recognized any class distinction whatever. If he ever made a distinction, it was a distinction between the good and the bad. He was never governed by considerations of wealth, rank, or public honors. His friendships belonged to that old-fashioned type wherein men were actuated by a spirit of brotherhood and unaffected love for one another.