Succession in the Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Part 5

Succession in the Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Part 5

Soon after this, Mr. Marks, one Israel L. Rogers and William W. Blair, all interested in the "Reorganized church" movement, visited Mr. Smith at his mother's home in Nauvoo, and held an interview with them. It was finally decided that Mr. Smith and his mother should attend the ensuing April conference, called to a.s.semble at Amboy, Lee county, Illinois, and the matter was to be laid before the church and a decision arrived at:

"For, said Elder Marks; we have had enough of man-made prophets, and we don't want any more of that sort. If G.o.d has called you, we want to know it. If he has, the Church is ready to sustain you; if not, we want nothing to do with you."[A]

[Footnote A: Life of Joseph the Prophet, Josephite edition p. 767.]

Messrs. Marks, Rogers and Blair, in 1860, seem not to have been so urgent as Messrs. Briggs and Gurley had been in 1856; the latter had commanded him to take the Presidency of the church, or refuse to do so at his peril; the former merely agreed to see about it, by presenting the matter to the church. Indeed for men who professed to have evidence that Mr. Smith had been called, blessed and anointed by Joseph the prophet to be the President of the church, and to possess the right to that position by virtue of lineage, the reply of Mr.

Marks to Mr. Smith's proposition to take the Presidency of the Reorganized church seems unaccountably cold, and too much burdened with doubt and independence when addressing the only man who, on the theory of the "Reorganized church," could possibly succeed to the Presidency. Mr. Smith affects to have been made indignant at the urgency of Messrs. Briggs and Gurley, in 1856; the coldness and independence of Messrs. Marks, Rogers and Blair must have been a still greater source of annoyance.

Mr. Smith went to the conference at Amboy, and in the afternoon of the 6th of April, 1860, made a speech, at the conclusion of which it was moved that he be received as a prophet,--the successor of his father.

The motion was carried by a unanimous vote, after which Mr. Gurley who, a.s.sisted by Mr. William Marks, presided at the conference, arose and said:

Brother Joseph, I present this Church to you in the name of Jesus Christ!

And of course Mr. Smith accepted it.

The speech made by Mr. Smith at the above mentioned conference is remarkable only for its tameness; but I quote a few sentences that may be of special interest; first as showing that he claimed to be called to his position by a power not his own:--

I came not here of myself, but by the influence of the spirit. For some time past I have received manifestations pointing to the position I am about to a.s.sume. I wish to say that I have come here not to be dictated by any men or set of men. I have come in obedience to a power not my own, and shall be dictated by the power which sent me.

... Some, who ought to know the proprieties of the church, have told me that no certain form was necessary in order for me to a.s.sume the leadership, that the position came by right of lineage, yet I know that if I attempted to lead as a prophet by these considerations, and _not by a call from heaven_, men would not be lead to believe who do not believe now. And so I have come not of my own dictation to this sacred office.

As to revelations he said:

I have my peculiar notions in regard to revelations, but am happy to say that they accord with those I am to a.s.sociate with, at least with those of them with whom I have conversed. I am not very conversant with those books (pointing to a volume before him), not so conversant as I should be and will be.

That his "notions in regard to revelations" were indeed "peculiar,"

one only has to read the following to be convinced:

_I pledge myself to promulgate no doctrine that shall not be approved by you_, or the code of good morals.

How different this from the reply of one of the ancient prophets, when some sought to have him give out no prophecy or revelation but what should be approved by them:

And Micaiah said, as the Lord liveth what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak![A]

[Footnote A: I Kings xxii, 7-14]

How different, too, from the spirit of Brigham Young who shortly after being chosen President of the church wrote:

As the Lord's will is my will all the time--as He dictates so will I perform. If He don't guide the ship, we'll go down in the whirlpool.[A]

[Footnote A: Letter to Orson Spencer, Jan. 23rd. 1848, _Mill. Star_, Vol. X, p. 115.]

What a contrast also between his "I-pledge-myself-to-promulgate-no- doctrine-that-shall-not-be-approved-by-you" position of the son of the great prophet, and the position in which the Almighty G.o.d of heaven placed his father. The prophet Joseph's position may be learned from the following revelation given the very day the church was organized:

Behold there shall be a record kept among you, and in it thou shalt be called a seer, a translator, a prophet, an apostle of Jesus Christ, an elder of the church, through the will of G.o.d the Father and the grace of your Lord Jesus Christ... . Wherefore, meaning the church, thou shalt give heed unto all his words and commandments which he shall give unto you _as he receiveth them_, walking in all holiness before me. _For his words ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth_, in all patience and faith; for by doing these things the gates of h.e.l.l shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord G.o.d will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good and his name's glory.[A]

[Footnote A: Doc. and Cov., sec. xxi.]

As the heavens are higher than the earth, so is this position given to the prophet Joseph by the Lord higher than that a.s.sumed by his son, who claims to be his successor, and yet stands pledged to promulgate no doctrine that shall not be approved by his a.s.sociates! What manner of prophet is this?

Following Mr. Smith's acceptance of the church at the hands of Mr.

Gurley, he was ordained to the office of President of the high priesthood and President of the church by William Marks, Zenas H.

Gurley, Samuel Powers and W. W. Blair. Mr. Marks was president of the Nauvoo stake of Zion at the death of the prophet, and the other three gentlemen were "apostles" in the Reorganized church.[A]

[Footnote A: _The Successor_, (Josephite pamphlet,) pp. 10, II, also _The Saint's Herald_, Vol x.x.xIX, No. 24. p. 375.]

We have now followed the history of the "Reorganized church" as far as it is necessary. It only remains to remark that it is a stream formed by the confluence of two other streams; one of which, represented by Mr. Gurley and his following, flows from Strangism; and the other, represented by Mr. Briggs and his following, flows from the church organized by William Smith. We leave it for Josephites to inform us on what principle of philosophy two corrupt, apostate streams by uniting, make a pure one!

VI.

Let us now consider the claims of Mr. Joseph Smith to be of right the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His claims, or those made in his behalf by his friends and followers, are based upon the following a.s.sumptions:--

First, that he was called to that position when a boy, through his father, (1) by prophecy and blessing in Liberty jail, Missouri, where his father was confined in the winter of 1838-9 (2) by revelation in 1841; and (3) by a formal anointing in a council of the priesthood at Nauvoo, in 1844:--

Second, that the position in his by lineage--it is his birthright:--

Third, that he was called to the position by "revelation" to himself; and,

Fourth, he was ordained to it by those holding legal authority.[A]

[Footnote A: See _The Saint's Herald_, Vol. x.x.xIX, p. 337; and also _The Successor_, a Josephite pamphlet, pp. 8, 9, 10, 11.]

It is my purpose to consider these claims in their order, one by one, and show the untrustworthiness of the evidence upon which they are based, the weakness of the argument by which they are sustained, and finally how these claims contradict both the facts of history and the order that exists in the holy priesthood. I take up the first a.s.sumption in its several parts:

He was called to that position [_i. e._, to be President of the church], through his father, by prophecy and blessing in Liberty jail.

This claim is based solely upon the testimony of Lyman Wight. They quote him as follows:

In the private journal of Lyman Wight, ... . this is found: "Sunday, December 8th, 1850, bore testimony that Joseph Smith appointed those of his own posterity to be his successor."

And in a letter he wrote in July, 1855, from Medina river, Texas, to the _Northern Islander_, a Strangite paper, Brother Wight said: Now Mr. Editor, if you had been present _when Joseph called on me shortly after we came out of jail_,[A] [Liberty jail, Missouri.

--Ed.] to lay hands with him on the head of a youth, and heard him cry aloud, "you are my successor when I depart." and heard the blessings poured on his head,--I say had you heard all this, and seen the tears streaming from his eyes--you would not have been led [into following Strang] by blind fanaticism, or a zeal without knowledge.[B]

[Footnote A: The _italics_ are mine, note them. R.]

[Footnote B: _The Saint's Herald_, Vol. x.x.xIX, No. 22, p. 338-9.]

Of this testimony it is to be said, first on the entry in Mr. Wight's journal, that it is too general in its character to be of much service in supporting the claims of "young Joseph." We are not certain that he refers to him at all. Then if Lyman Wight knew in 1850 that Joseph the prophet had blessed his son Joseph to be his successor, as prophet and president of the church, Mr. Wight knew it in 1844; and is it not strange that he did not speak of it and advocate it when the question of a successor was warmly discussed in Nauvoo, during the autumn of 1844? Why is it that we have nothing from him on the subject earlier than 1850? And this silence on the part of Mr. Wight is the more significant when it is remembered that he was a bold, fearless man. It cannot be said in truth, that Brigham Young's influence was so masterly as to awe him into silence. As a matter of fact he violently opposed Brigham Young in some of his measures, and at last rebelled against him; but nothing is said by him until 1850, about the appointment of any of the prophet's posterity to succeed to the presidency of the church.

The letter quoted from the _Northern Islander_, might be of some force if its statements were not contradicted as to time and place and circ.u.mstance by another statement, also made in a Josephite publication. Let it be observed that according to the testimony of Mr Wight, in the _Northern Islander_, the "blessing and prophecy" under consideration was given at a time that the prophet called on Mr.

Wight, _shortly after they came out of Liberty jail_. With that in mind read the following in _The Successor:_--[A]

[Footnote A: A Josephite tract sustaining the claims of "young Joseph," p. 3.]