Joseph Smith the Prophet-Teacher Part 1

Joseph Smith the Prophet-Teacher.

by B. H. Roberts.

DEDICATION.

TO MY MOTHER, ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF HER EIGHTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1908.

For a long time, my Dear Mother, I have desired to couple remembrance of you with some of my works; and finally have chosen this Discourse upon our great Prophet-Teacher to carry with it that distinction. To all who read this Discourse, then, I desire to say that I love and honor you; and that your love for me has ever been an inspiration to my work.

JOSEPH SMITH THE PROPHET-TEACHER

A Discourse[A]

[Footnote A: This discourse was delivered at the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, on Sunday, December 22nd, 1907, at a Memorial Service held in honor of the one hundred and second anniversary of the Prophet's birth, 23rd December 1805.]

Tomorrow will be the one hundred and second anniversary of the birth of Joseph Smith, whom most of you here present believe was a Prophet of G.o.d. I have been invited to say something about him on this occasion. It is not at all my intention to deal with the incidents of Joseph Smith's eventful life; these are familiar to you. If I could attain the full desire of my heart, I would like to set before you somewhat the value of this man as a teacher of great truths. I desire to speak of him as a Prophet-Teacher, that is, as a Prophet acting in his capacity of Teacher, a Prophet's highest and n.o.blest office.

As an introduction to what I desire to say, I shall read a pa.s.sage from a book quite famous for its literary merit--it has reached its ninth edition; also it is famous for the character sketches of prominent Americans of the early decades of the nineteenth century.

The book, "Figures of the Past," was written by Josiah Quincy of the famous Quincy family of Ma.s.sachusetts, a graduate of Harvard, 1821; mayor of Boston from 1845 to 1849. Mr. Quincy visited Nauvoo in May, 1844, forty-three days previous to the martyrdom of the Prophet, and though his "Figures of the Past" was not published until 1882, the year of his death, yet his recollections of the Prophet and his impressions of Nauvoo were drawn from his journal, written at the time of that visit, and numerous letters written to his friends about the same period. Mr. Quincy places his pen-portrait of "Joseph Smith at Nauvoo" with similar portraits of such eminent Americans as John Adams, Daniel Webster, John Randolph, Andrew Jackson, and the French soldier and statesman, Lafayette. The pa.s.sage I am going to read is the opening paragraph of the chapter on "Joseph Smith at Nauvoo."

I.

A GREAT POSSIBILITY.

"It is by no means improbable that some future text-book, for the use of generations yet unborn, will contain a question something like this: What historical American of the nineteenth century has exerted the most powerful influence upon the destinies of his countrymen? And it is by no means impossible that the answer to that interrogatory may be thus written: Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet. And the reply, absurd as it doubtless seems to most men now living, may be an obvious commonplace to their descendants.

History deals in surprises and paradoxes quite as startling as this. The man who established a religion in this age of free debate, who was and is today accepted by hundreds of thousands as a direct emissary from the Most High--such a rare human being is not to be disposed of by pelting his memory with unsavory epithets."

Reading that pa.s.sage a few days ago, I asked the question: Is this rather remarkable semi-prediction of Quincy's in the way of fulfillment? Tomorrow will be the one hundred and second anniversary of our Prophet's birth. It is more than one hundred years since he came to earth, and sixty-three years since he departed from it. What evidence is there before the world that would lead any serious-minded person to believe that this prediction I have read in your hearing may find fulfillment? "Certainly," men will begin to say, "enough time has elapsed to develop the character of your Prophet's work; whether he built of wood, hay, stubble, or of gold or precious stones. Is his influence to be merely transient and local or did he really deal with some universal and permanent truths that must remain to influence mankind?"

II.

HISTORICAL AMERICANS.

As introductory to these considerations, let us think about some of these historical Americans whose influence upon their countrymen is to be eclipsed, perhaps, by the "Mormon Prophet." Among our patriots and statesmen will be remembered Patrick Henry, with his doctrine of the inherent right of revolution against intolerable oppression; Jefferson, and his "Declaration of Independence" and the "Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom," the principle of which finally found its way into our national and state Const.i.tutions; Alexander Hamilton and his political interpretation of the const.i.tutional powers of our general government; Webster and his doctrine of the sacredness of the American Union of States--the statesman of nationalism; Monroe, with the doctrine which bears his name, politically segregating the American continents from Europe, and dedicating the western world to free inst.i.tutions; Lincoln, with his doctrine of the rightfulness of personal freedom for every man, woman and child of Adam's race--the doctrine of the universal application of the self-evident principles of the Declaration of Independence--the right of men to live, to be free, to pursue happiness--principles he invoked in behalf of the African race in the United States. Among inventors will be remembered Fulton, Whitney, Morse and Edison; among the philosophers, practical and speculative, Franklin, Emerson and John Fiske; among the poets, Longfellow, Poe, Whitman, and Lowell; among the preachers and theologians, Jonathan Edwards and his cruel orthodoxy; Wm. E. Channing and his Unitarian liberalism; Henry Ward Beecher and his successor, Lyman Abbott, with their efforts at reconciliation of Christianity and evolution.

This enumeration does not exhaust the list of historical Americans who have powerfully influenced their countrymen, but it will not be doubted that they represent the very chief of the respective groups that have so influenced their countrymen.

Thinking of the achievements of these great Americans, and weighing the influence of each upon his countrymen, do you not really think, even with Josiah Quincy on our side, it looks presumptuous in us to hold that Joseph Smith may yet exert a greater influence over his countrymen than any one of these, his compatriots? That is the question I propose to put on trial here this afternoon.

III.

WHAT IS A PROPHET?

First of all, a word of definition: This term "prophet"--what do you make of it? Generally, when you speak of a "prophet," you have in mind a predictor of future events, one who foretells things that are to come to pa.s.s, and indeed that is, in part, the office of a prophet--in part what is expected of him. But really this is the very least of his duties. A prophet should be a "forth-teller" rather than a fore-teller. Primarily he must be a teacher of men, an expounder of the things of G.o.d. The inspiration of the Almighty must give him understanding, and when given he must expound it to his people, to his age. He must be a Seer that can make others see. A Teacher sent of G.o.d to instruct a people--to enlighten an age. This is the primary office of a prophet. And now I want to show you how well and faithfully our Prophet performed such duties.

To do this it is necessary that I say something about the ideas prevailing in the world at the Prophet's advent among men--I mean as to their religions and philosophies, the doctrines by which they were influenced. And this not only as to truth, but also as to error--and chiefly as to error, for, among other things, a prophet must correct the errors of men. It is a capital method of teaching truth--this correcting of errors.

IV.

RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL BELIEFS OF ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

REVELATION: At the commencement of the nineteenth century the general idea prevailed in Christendom that a great while ago a very definite revelation from G.o.d had been given; angels had visited the earth and imparted divine knowledge to men; the Spirit of the Almighty had rested upon some and had given them understanding by which they were able to declare the mind of G.o.d and the will of G.o.d. These were prophets. Some prophets there were who even talked with G.o.d "face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." So communed Moses with G.o.d (Ex. 33:11); so, too, Isaiah (Isa. 6:1-6). But while this belief as to revelation in the past everywhere prevailed, orthodox Christendom was equally certain that no revelation was being given in their day; and not only was no revelation then being given, but neither would there be any revelation given in future time. "The volume of revelation is completed and forever closed," was dogma in all Christendom. There would be no future visitation of angels. No more would the heavens be opened, or man stand face to face with his G.o.d, or speak to his Lord as a man speaketh to his friend. All this was ended. The canon of scripture was completed, and forever closed. That canon consisted of the Old and New Testaments; all other books were secular--this alone sacred. There was no other word of G.o.d.

IDEAS OF DEITY: In regard to deity, Christian men, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, believed that G.o.d was an incorporeal, immaterial being, without body--that is, not material, not matter; without parts; without pa.s.sions. And yet, with gravest inconsistency, they held that G.o.d was of love the essence; that He loved righteousness, that He hated iniquity; that He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life! Notwithstanding this "love" and this "hate" G.o.d was without pa.s.sions! He was, too, according to men's creeds, without form. Notwithstanding Moses, one of the G.o.d-inspired teachers of men, said that "G.o.d created man in His own image, in the image of G.o.d created He him;" and Jesus, by a prophet of the New Testament, was declared to be the express image of G.o.d's person (Hebrews i: 2, 3). Notwithstanding this, I say, men, in the early decades of the nineteenth century, were possessed of a "morbid terror"

of anthropomorphism--the ascription of human form, feeling or qualities to G.o.d--as if they could escape it and still hold belief in the Bible revelation of G.o.d! Or, for matter of that, hold to any doctrine of G.o.d taught either by religion or philosophy. At the very least, if the G.o.d-idea survive at all, G.o.d must be held to possess consciousness, both consciousness of self, and of other than self--self-consciousness, and other-consciousness; also He must be thought of as possessed of volition; and what are these but human qualities, which present G.o.d to our thought as anthropomorphic? Strip G.o.d of these attributes and He is reduced to the atheists' "force;" to blind, purposeless force, that can sustain no possible personal relationship whatsoever to men or other things in the universe. As one writer in a great magazine recently said: "If we are to know the Supreme Reality at all, it can only be through the attribution to Him of qualities a.n.a.logous to, though infinitely transcending, the qualities which we recognize as highest in man, and consequently [highest] in the world as we know it."

But I must pa.s.s by these inconsistencies of the creeds of men. I shall have no time to discuss them. Indeed, I must ask you to think with me in headlines, and to think fast. We have no time for argument. We shall barely have time to pa.s.s over the ground proposed, and must depend upon the truth of our statements being self-evident, or conceded to be accurate statements of fact.

OF THE UNIVERSE: Respecting the universe, Christendom, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, believed that it was created of G.o.d from nothing, and that no great while ago. "Calling forth from nothing" was held to be indeed the meaning of "create." G.o.d transcended the universe; was, in fact, outside of it; was what an American philosopher (Fiske) some years afterwards called an "Absentee G.o.d." Absent, "except for a little jog or poke here and there in the shape of a special providence."

"Down to a period almost within living memory," says Andrew Dixon White, in his great work, "Warfare of Science with Theology," "it was held, virtually 'always, everywhere, and by all,' that the universe, as we now see it, was created literally and directly by the voice or hands of the Almighty, or by both--out of nothing--in an instant, or in six days, or in both--about four thousand years before the Christian era--and for the convenience of the dwellers upon the earth, which was at the base and foundation of the whole structure." Such were the views of men concerning the universe during the period here considered.

OF MAN: Respecting man, it was taught that while he was created of G.o.d, his origin was purely an earthly one, his body made of the earth, a spirit breathed into him when his body was made, and so man became a living soul. All taught that he was a created thing, a creature.

MAN AND HIS SALVATION: As to man's salvation, some of the creeds taught that G.o.d, of His own volition, had foreordained that some men and angels were doomed to everlasting destruction, and others predestined to eternal life and glory. Not "for any good or ill" that they had done or could do, but their fate was fixed by the volition of G.o.d alone. These whom He would save, He would move by irresistible grace to their salvation; those whom He had pre-determined should be d.a.m.ned might not escape, struggle they never so persistently; no prayers could save them; no act of obedience might mitigate their punishment; no hungering and thirsting after righteousness, bring them to blessedness; they must perish, and that eternally! Those who perish in ignorance of Christ--the heathen races--were d.a.m.ned. "The heathen in ma.s.s, with no single definite and unquestionable exception on record, are evidently strangers to G.o.d, and going down to death in an unsaved condition. The presumed possibility of being saved without a knowledge of Christ remains, after 1,800 years, a possibility ill.u.s.trated by no example." So said those who expounded this creed.

Others, still, taught that infants dying in infancy without receiving Christian baptism were d.a.m.ned, and that everlastingly. By some, unbaptized infants were denied burial in sanctified ground. "h.e.l.l's Half Acre" was a reality in some Christian graveyards.

OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SALVATION AND d.a.m.nATION: Salvation and d.a.m.nation meant, as to the former, the attainment of heaven; as to the latter, a.s.signment to h.e.l.l. The former, judging from the descriptions of it, a mysterious, indefinite state "enjoyed" somewhere "beyond the bounds of time and s.p.a.ce * * * the saints secure abode;" the latter, a very definite place, with very definite and very hot conditions, that had power to endure and that everlastingly, to the eternal misery of the d.a.m.ned. Time might come and time might go, but this torture, undiminished, went on forever. If one gained heaven, even by ever so small a margin, he entered upon a complete possession of all its unutterable joys, equally with the angels and the holiest of saints.

If he missed heaven, even by ever so narrow a margin, he was doomed to everlasting torment equally with the wickedest of men and vilest of devils, and there was no deliverance for him.

These were some of the prevailing ideas, of the philosophy and the religion of men at the birth of the Prophet. A philosophy inadequate for any reasonable accounting for the universe. A religion that was derogatory to G.o.d and debasing to man--errors of both philosophy and religion that it was, I believe, the mission of our Prophet to correct. Let us follow him as he proceeds with his corrections, his setting over against every error above enumerated the truth received of G.o.d.