Wilford Woodruff, Fourth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints / History of His Life and Labors, as Recorded in His Daily Journals

by Wilford Woodruff

CHAPTER 17.

TEACHINGS OF THE PROPHET JOSEPH, 1843.

Change in Governors of Missouri and Illinois.—Prophet's Release.—Discourse on Authority.—Signs in the Heavens.—New Arrivals of Saints.—Death of Lorenzo Barnes.—Discourse on Knowledge.—Great Truths.—Prophet's Knowledge of Men.—Wilford Woodruff's Bond for Temple Funds.—Opposition to Revealed Truth.—Hell Defined.—Prophet Arrested.—His Release.

Elder Woodruff celebrated New Year's day, 1843, by a sleigh ride over in Iowa. There he had gone fifteen miles to perform a marriage ceremony in behalf of Abraham Newbury and Miss Eliza Duty.

The New Year brought relief to the Prophet and to the Church in consequence of a political change in the governorship of both Missouri and Illinois. While Governors Carlin and Reynolds held the office of governors of these states, justice was beyond all hope. They were bitter and would yield themselves gladly to the demands of those who were persecuting and hounding the Prophet.

The 17th day of January was appointed by general proclamation a day of humiliation, fasting, prayer, and thanksgiving. The deliverance of the Prophet from the hands of his enemies and his return to the Saints in Nauvoo were sources of unbounded joy to them. Elder Woodruff met, with others, at the Prophet's home and took part there in friendly and brotherly greetings with those who welcomed the liberty and return of their leader.

The day following, the Twelve were among those who met at Joseph's home where he and his wife entertained about seventy people. Among them were twenty men who had attended him at his trial in Springfield and returned with him to Nauvoo. There was an apparently universal joy over the outcome of his trial. The people in those days, however, like Israel of old associated certain worldly successes with their ideas of right, and misfortunes with their ideas of wrong. "Who hath sinned," Jesus was asked upon healing a man of His times, "he or his parents?" Those sacrifices, tribulations, trials, and persecutions accompany those who are valiant for their God and maintain His commandments. Men are prone, nevertheless, to attribute worldly misfortunes to wrong doing even though men suffer in the performance of some God-given requirement.

While Joseph was driven from his home and affairs into seclusion, and persecuted and afflicted by his enemies, there were those who were ready to listen to the sophistries and cunning arguments of the hypocrite and the Pharisee in their midst. In his absence and in his seclusion the powerfulness of his personalty was not so strongly felt, and the evil inclinations of men found opportunities for gratification and justification. Now that he had returned to their midst, free to preach, and free to rebuke, there was rejoicing among even those who have no higher conception of divine purposes than to associate worldly success with God's favors and misfortune with His displeasure.

On the 22nd of January, 1843, at the Nauvoo Temple the Prophet delivered a discourse to the multitude present. Elder Woodruff, ever faithful to his mission as a journalist of early Church history, gives a synopsis of the discourse from which the following is taken: "In consequence of rejecting the gospel of Jesus Christ and the prophets whom God hath sent, His judgments have rested upon peoples, states, and nations in various ages of the world. This was the case with the cities of Sodom and Gomorah which were destroyed for rejecting prophets.

"I will now give my testimony. I care not what man can do. I speak boldly and faithfully and with authority. Where there is no Kingdom of God there is no salvation. Where there is a prophet, or a priest, or a righteous man unto whom the Lord gives His oracles, there is the Kingdom. Where the oracles are not, the Kingdom of God is not. In these remarks I make no allusion to the kingdoms of the earth. We will keep the laws of the land; we do not speak against them, nor have we ever done so. We can scarcely make mention of the State of Missouri and our persecutions there without a cry going forth that we are guilty of treason. We speak of the Kingdom of God on the earth and not of the kingdoms of man.