Part 5

In Illinois further trouble was inaugurated by Missourians. They sought on one occasion to kidnap the Prophet, but failed. Fabricated charges were made against the Prophet. He was tried as before, and every time acquitted. When his last trial was being conducted, the mob (like the rabble in the halls of Pilate) said that if the law could not touch him, powder and lead should. Their nefarious purposes were permitted to be carried out, and on June 27th, 1844, Joseph and Hyrum, while under the pledged protection of Gov. Ford, were assassinated by a howling mob in Carthage jail, Hancock county, Illinois. Previous to his martyrdom, the Prophet Joseph had received more than one hundred revelations, had been instrumental in organizing the Church in its fullness, and bestowing the keys of the kingdom of God upon the Twelve Apostles. To Nauvoo were gathered thousands of people from the several states, Canada and Great Britain. At the time of the Prophet's martyrdom the Twelve were abroad on missions, with the exception of Elders John Taylor and Willard Richards, who were with the Prophet and Patriarch at the time of the martyrdom, Elder Taylor himself being wounded with four bullets.

While the Saints were in Missouri the Lord commanded that they should importune the officers of the law in the districts where the trouble occurred, and not being heeded, should appeal to the governor, thence to the president of the United States. All this was done, without avail. The president answered their appeal by saying, "Gentlemen, your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you." Governors of states were written to, to use their influence to avert the wrongs heaped upon the Saints, but from one or two only came a favorable response. On the failure of the states and nation to protect their own citizens against mob violence and plunder, the Lord promised to vex the nation with a sore vexation. This was done in the hundreds of thousands of lives and the millions in treasure lost in the Civil War. The outbreak of this war was revealed by the Lord to Joseph twenty-eight years before it came to pass, and published to the world as early as 1851.

The Church was not founded by men, nor did it depend upon any particular man or set of men for strength, growth or progress. God has rounded and protected and is perpetuating His Church on the earth, so that when the Prophet passed to the life beyond, the work continued and grew with great rapidity. It is said, and truly, that "the blood of the martyr is the seed of the Church."

President Brigham Young and his associates of the Twelve, according to the voice of the Spirit and the order of the Holy Priesthood, succeeded to the Presidency of the Church. The work of the Lord continued to prosper, contrary to the prediction of its enemies that when the Prophet Joseph was out of the way the work would come to naught. The foundation of a temple had been laid which was pushed to completion, dedicated to the Lord, and ordinances performed therein. Mobocratic hostilities were renewed, however, with determined vigor. Nauvoo was besieged. The temple was burned and Elder William Anderson and his son killed. The Saints were expelled at the point of the bayonet. They had a flourishing city in an incredibly short time. They were quiet, peaceable, law-abiding, industrious citizens. The killing of their leading men, the burning of their homes, the numerous indignities heaped upon them, were as dastardly and cold-blooded as any persecution chronicled in the annals of history, especially when we consider that it occurred in a free country, where liberty for every race and religion is the proud boast of its people. Many of the people left Nauvoo in the dead of winter, 1845-6, crossing the Mississippi river on the ice. The day after the general exodus, nine children were born in the camp of the exiled people. Under the leadership of President Young and his associates, the Saints moved westward across the state of Iowa and built up a settlement called Winter Quarters, where the people remained to recruit until 1847. While there the government called on the Saints for five hundred men to engage in the war with Mexico. These were promptly supplied, and the most able-bodied men were sent to defend their country.

In the spring of 1847, President Young and a small company numbering 143, including three women, started from the Missouri river to find beyond the Rocky Mountains a place of rest, where they might build and inhabit homes and worship God "free from the furious rage of mobs." After an interesting and trying journey of about three months this noble band of pioneers entered Salt Lake valley July 24th, 1847, over a thousand miles from the Mississippi river. As they emerged from the mouth of what was afterwards named Emigration Canyon, they stood upon a plateau facing westward. To the north and south a great valley extended, bordered on the west by mountains and a great inland sea of salt water, the Great Salt Lake. The islands in the lake are mountains almost destitute of timber, but supplied with grass suitable for the grazing of horses and cattle. The valley was poorly watered, and dry and sterile was the appearance of the country before them. But God was their leader. He had shown to President Young beforehand the Salt Lake Valley. When the pioneer band entered the valley the Prophet said, "This is the place. Here we will build a city." When they came upon the ground where the temple now stands, President Young, thrusting his cane into the ground, said in substance, "Here we will stay, and upon this ground we will build a temple."

All the events conducing to the growth and development of the valleys prove that President Brigham Young knew whereof he spoke, and God has confirmed his words by the many blessings of divine Providence showered upon the people in building up a commonwealth in what was in those days a great barren waste. The soil upon which the Saints then stood belonged to Mexico. Those pioneers were as truly exiles from their country as were the Puritans who sailed the trackless ocean and planted their feet upon Plymouth Rock. And yet the Latter-day Saints then had five hundred men in the American army, in the contest with Mexico. Upon a prominent mountain peak, called Ensign, the "Mormon" pioneers planted the Stars and Stripes, the flag of their country, and possessed the land as citizens of the United States. Upon the arrival of this first company the work of plowing and building immediately commenced. It would take volumes to tell the history of the growth and progress of the Saints from that time till now; but this wondrous recital is written upon the mountains and in the valleys, which are open to the inspection of all people.

In the fall of 1847 a large company of Saints crossed the plains, led by President John Taylor and other prominent men. The companies continued to pour into Salt Lake valley and spread into the valleys north and south each year from 1847 to 1900, coming as Latter-day Saints, under the regulations of the Church. The leading brethren had made covenant that they would not cease their energies until all the Saints who would remain faithful should be gathered to the place appointed.

Before the death of Prophet Joseph many had apostatized. The Saints were not so well established in doctrine as they are today, and some were led astray by the pretensions of prominent men who were disposed to leave the Church and follow their own course. The Twelve Apostles stood next in authority to the Presidency of the Church by the order pointed out in the revelations of God and at the time when Sidney Rigdon was asserting his claims to the guardianship of the Church, President Young stood up to address the Saints. A remarkable manifestation of God's power took place. President Young was transfigured before the people. He appeared to increase in height and in form of his face and body to the exact personal appearance of the Prophet Joseph Smith. When he spoke his voice was as that of the martyred Prophet. People who were present on that occasion say that if their eyes had been closed when he arose from his seat they would have believed the speaker to be none other than the Martyr. Truly the mantle of Joseph had fallen upon Brigham, and while Joseph had received all the keys of the priesthood, he had bestowed them upon the Twelve, also the revelations upon which to build the Church of Christ. President Young truly built upon these revelations during his entire administration. In 1849, at Winter Quarters, he was sustained as President of the Church by the unanimous voice of the priesthood, Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards then being chosen Counselors and so endorsed by the voice of the Church thereafter at general conferences during the remainder of their lifetimes. President Young presided over the Church as the senior Apostle for thirty-three years, five years in connection with the Twelve and twenty-eight years in the Presidency.

Soon after the settlement of the Saints in Salt Lake valley, other valleys were explored north and south, and settlements established wherever water could be obtained, as rapidly as the strength and numbers of the Saints would justify. As early as 1860 settlements were rounded and the Saints organized in Wards and quorums of the priesthood, from Cache valley to St. George, a distance of over 400 miles from north to south. Wherever the Saints locate in settlements of a few families, or more, they are organized with a Bishop and counselors to preside over them, with Priests, Teachers and Deacons, as before explained, for a local ministry. As helps in government they had in those early days the Relief Society to relieve the poor and afflicted. The society is composed of women, and was first organized March 17, 1842, by the Prophet Joseph Smith, in Nauvoo. In 1849 the first Sunday school was established in the Church by Richard Ballantyne, in the Fourteenth Ward, Salt Lake City. Later, and during the administration of President Young, the Young Men and Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Associations were inaugurated. Still later, by suggestion of Sister Aurelia Spencer Rogers, under the administration of President John Taylor, the Primary Associations, presided over and conducted by capable sisters, were established for the especial benefit of little children. All these are helpful regulations to meet the growing requirements of the Saints in matters of religious, moral and intellectual training and development. One of these organizations exists in every Bishop's Ward, unless the number of any class who properly belong to one of the associations named is too limited to make the organization profitable. In such cases those who would take part in such associations are not unprovided for because the Sunday school, more than any other association in the Church, takes in all ages of both sexes. Our Sunday schools now have a membership of nearly 125,000.

Where there are a sufficient number of Wards, in any section of the country, these Wards are presided over by a President and two counselors, with a High Council, who have certain jurisdiction over matters pertaining to the Church in this group of Wards. The associations, Sunday schools, societies, etc., have a general superintendency of three, with assistants. This organization, composed of the Wards, is called a Stake of Zion. For convenience sake, the geographical boundaries of the Stake are usually the same as those of the county, but not always, or necessarily so. Sometimes the population of two or three counties is not too great to be one Stake, where the settlements are close together, or not separated by mountains, which would render the attendance of the people at Stake conferences, especially in the winter season, very laborious, and in some instances almost impossible. We have now fifty Stakes of Zion. They extend from Canada to Mexico. They exist in Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Canada and Mexico. Many of them were organized just prior to the decease of President Young, the remainder under his successors, respectively: Presidents Taylor, Woodruff, Snow and Smith.

April 6th, 1853, the Temple in Salt Lake City was commenced. It is constructed of granite. The rock was hauled, the first fifteen years, with ox teams, a distance of sixteen miles, two yoke of oxen frequently being required to draw one huge stone. But many years before the completion of the Temple, the locomotive, with many ear loads of stone at a time, rolled into the Temple block and left its cargo by the side of the growing edifice. The capstone of this magnificent house of the Lord was laid by electricity. The current was applied by the finger of God's Prophet, Wilford Woodruff, then eighty-four years of age, and one of that noble band of one hundred forty-three who entered Salt Lake valley July 24th, 1847. President Young was instrumental in laying the foundation of four temples in Utah, at Salt Lake, St. George, Logan and Manti. All have been, years ago, completed; the Salt Lake Temple being dedicated April 6th, 1893, by President Wilford Woodruff. The ordinances of salvation for the living and the dead are performed in the temples, and tens of thousands have been officiated for since their completion.

Subsequent to the exodus of the Church from Nauvoo to Salt Lake valley, the Gospel was introduced to the Pacific Isles by President George Q. Cannon and other Elders in 1853. In the work of preaching the Gospel many countries have not yet accorded perfect religious freedom, and to penetrate these the Church awaits only the provinces of the Almighty to break down the barriers and make it feasible to promulgate the Gospel in those countries. In other lands, where freedom reigns, the Elders have carried the glorious message. The Book of Mormon has been translated into German, Danish, Swedish, French, Spanish, Italian, Hawaiian, Maori and other tongues, and will continue to be given to the world until the truths of the Gospel upon its sacred pages shall be read by every nation, kindred, tongue and people. The thousands who have embraced the work with honest motives have received the witness of the Holy Spirit to their own satisfaction. Gifts and blessings which the ancient saints enjoyed have been renewed in this glorious dispensation.

The external history of the Church has been the same as in other times. "If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because ye are not of the world, therefore the world hateth you." "And they that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." Prophecy has been and is being fulfilled. "What is prophecy but history reversed?"

History repeats itself. When Joseph Smith promulgated a new revelation, religious and irreligious fought against such an idea. Professional religionists seek to prove by the Scriptures that revelations are not for our day. In this they fail, because the Old and New Testaments abound in predictions of future revelations and events which cannot be filled without revelation. The wicked have resorted to slander, ridicule and falsehood, then to violence, resulting in the destruction of property and human life. All this being futile, they moved the nation by the falsehoods of Judge Drummond to send an army to Utah. But when the army came they found that this United States officer had basely deceived the president of the nation, by telling that the Mormons were in a state of rebellion and had burned the court records, these being found unharmed. The Mormons were at peace with God and all mankind, quietly minding their own business, pursuing their vocations of life and building up the country for the benefit and blessing of all who should come within their gates. The army came to Utah in 1857, and subsequently returned East, going chiefly to the South, their leading officer, Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, taking part with the Confederate army in the great rebellion. He fell upon the battlefield of Shiloh, April 6th, 1862, thirty-two years to the day after the Church was born in this dispensation. The army sold to the Mormons mules, wagons, harness and other materials much needed, at a mere nominal figure, and thus being a blessing, proved the words of Isaiah true, "I will make the wrath of man to praise me."

As the Saints grew in prosperity and importance, avarice and prejudice seized political demagogues, adventurers and religious bigots, to stir the nation to a systematic effort to crush out "Mormonism." Special legislation was enacted and enforced beyond the severity of its own provisions. About eight hundred men went to prison; a few women were incarcerated because they would not testify against their husbands; heavy fines were paid and hundreds went into exile rather than prove untrue to the solemn covenants and obligations they had entered into under their religious convictions. Finally confiscation of Church property took place, but most of it was afterwards restored. In 1890 President Woodruff issued his manifesto regarding plural marriage, feeling that the courts of the country had abused justice in denying the Saints the liberty of religious worship granted by the American Constitution.

In this form of opposition to the Church, a prophecy of Joseph Smith is fulfilled, in which he said, in substance, that persecution against the Saints would extend from township to county, from county to state, and from state to nation. His words have been literally fulfilled. The Saints, in enduring persecution, did so with patience and forbearance. They have no spirit of revenge. They understand that much of the popular sentiment against them is based upon misunderstanding, rounded in the falsehood of wicked and designing men. The spirit of the Gospel teaches them that it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong, and that patience and charity are as necessary as a testimony of the truth; for without the approval of the Lord they could not endure the trials and temptations which beset them.

From the commencement the Church had taught the utmost freedom of mankind to worship as they chose, such liberty being curtailed only when it runs into license and infringes upon, the rights of others. In the early inception of the Church, God commanded His people to study and learn from the best of books, to acquire an understanding of the laws of God and the governments of men, to become acquainted with the heavens and the earth. Thus the Saints are the friends of all true education. Joseph Smith established a school in Kirtland for the study of Hebrew and other branches of knowledge. For Nauvoo he obtained a charter for a university. Brigham Young and his associates founded the Deseret University, now called the University of Utah. They have also established church schools, the Brigham Young Academy in Provo, the Brigham Young College in Logan, Stake academies and other schools. The sons of Latter-day Saints have graduated with honor in the Military Academy at West Point. In Ann Arbor, Michigan, they have a record unsurpassed in the law school and in other branches taught by that noted institution. The same is true of their record at Harvard and elsewhere; also are there numerous graduates of medicine, dentistry, civil engineering, etc., as taught in the great schools of Chicago, Philadelphia and other places. Mission conferences are established in almost every state of the American Union, also in England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Germany, Holland, Palestine, New Zealand, Australia, the Hawaiian and many other islands of the Pacific ocean, including Japan.

The present living membership of the Church, men, women and children, is not less than 310,000 souls. While there has been steady progress in numerical strength, it is not in numbers altogether that strength consists. We fully realize that "Straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." The greatest strength consists in the purity of the principle and the impossibility of the wicked and corrupt to remain long in the Church. God is its founder and builder. He established the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It will stand always, for "whatsoever the Lord doeth, He doeth it forever."

CHURCH ORGANIZATION.

We have treated briefly upon the subject of Divine Authority, merely pointing out the absolute necessity of such authority in order to obtain complete salvation, and how it was bestowed and perpetuated whenever a Gospel dispensation existed upon the earth. It will not be amiss to deal briefly with the subject of Church Organization, as this specifies the distribution of divine authority to the various offices in the Church of Christ, each having specific duties to perform.

In the beginning we wish it distinctly understood that we accept of the New Testament as the record of this organization, and that nowhere within that sacred record is even an intimation that, by divine appointment, the offices established in the Church of Christ by the Savior of mankind would be done away. On the other hand, neither do we claim that the New Testament contains a full and explicit statement of every office in the Church, with the several duties of each officer and the relationship which each council or order of authority bears to every other council. The New Testament is fragmentary and has been translated and re-translated many times since it was first written by inspired apostles and prophets; those translations were by men not claiming the inspiration which characterized the men of God who wrote it.

In this connection we must not forget the statement of Holy Writ: "The things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. * * * But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (I. Cor. ii:11, 14. ) Therefore, where the inspired record is not sufficiently full in elucidating any principle, nothing short of new revelation from God will clear away the mist and bring us to a knowledge of the truth. The writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, James and Jude, so far as they bear upon the sayings and acts of the Savior during His earthly ministry, are the testimonies of what they saw and heard personally, as well as the revelations of the Holy Ghost to them, subsequent to the crucifixion and ascension of the Savior. Paul embraced the Gospel later, and was not personally associated with Jesus in His ministry. His testimony is equally binding, however, as he "wrote and spoke as he was moved upon by the Holy Ghost." "In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established." (Matt. xviii:16.)

In Matthew, chapter 10, commencing with the first verse, we have this statement: "And when He had called unto Him His Twelve disciples, He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out and heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. Now the names of the Twelve apostles are these;" then follows the name of each of the Twelve. Mark gives more detail as to when and where they were called, as follows: "And He goeth up into a mountain and called unto Him whom He would; and they came unto Him. And He ordained twelve," etc. (Mark iii:13, 14.) Luke records the calling of the Twelve in the sixth chapter of his book, beginning with the twelfth verse: "And it came to pass in those days that He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day He called unto Him His disciples: and of them He chose twelve, whom also He named apostles." Paul says in I. Cor. xii:28: "And God hath set some in the church, first apostles;" and again in Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 11: "And He gave some apostles."