Lesson 32 - "To Seal the Testimony"

The reading for this week is Section 135 of the Doctrine and Covenants. The section is short and you've likely read it before.

My class will talk about the martyrdom, but we will likewise talk about Joseph's contributions and focus on his teachings in the last few months of his life. We will primarily emphasize the King Follett Discourse. There were 4 scribes taking notes. Read the amalgamated version here.

Section 135 is one of the section introductions which has changed in the new edition of the scriptures. It formerly said it was written by John Taylor. Historians have only recently discovered that it was likely Willard Richards, not John Taylor who wrote the section or at least the earliest drafts of the section--John Taylor was still in Carthage recovering from his injuries. John Taylor first publicly presented it. For more on the history that led to that change and the John Taylor history read this BYU Studies article by LaJean Carruth and Mark Staker here.

Joseph and Hyrum were killed by a group of Carthage Greys--local militia members (likely combined with other locals) while upstairs in a bedroom above the jail at Carthage, Illinois. If you are interested in some of the possible logistics of what happened at the jail read here. They had chosen to surrender after declaring the Nauvoo Expositor a public nuisance and destroying the press after the Expositor published an article exposing polygamy likely written by William Law, one of Joseph's counselors in the first presidency.

Heber C. Kimball and other members of the Twelve were in the east at the time of the martyrdom. On the 9th of July they read accounts of Joseph's death. He later wrote to Vilate, "the papers ware full of News of the death of our Prophet, I was not willen to believe it, fore it was to much to bare. . . . it struct me at the heart.” This was not the first time that papers had reported Joseph's death, the missionaries did not know if they should believe it. Vilate, Heber's wife, wrote him letters in the weeks preceding the martyrdom--describing the various scenes of confusion through which the Saints passed. Her letter reached him three days later and verified the news. Her letters offer a window into what the Saints in Nauvoo felt and experienced at the time it occurred, rather than an account shaped by time. Read her letters to Heber in Ron Esplin's article here.

In her last letter to to Heber she wrote, "Never before, did I take up my pen to address you under so trying circumstances as we are now placed...I shall not attempt to discribe the scene that we have passed through. God forbid that I should ever witness another like unto it. I saw the lifeless corpes of our beloved brethren when they were brought to their almost distracted families. Yea I witnessed their tears, and groans, which was enough to rend the heart of an adamant. Every brother and sister that witnessed the scene fe[lt] deeply to simpathyze with them. Yea, every heart is filled with sorrow, and the very streets of Nauvoo seam to morn. Whare it will end the Lord only knows."

"It seems that all nature mourns" wrote Sally Parker to friends in the East in the week after Joseph and Hyrum's martyrdom. Her letter likewise gives us a contemporary look into the lives of the Saints immediately following Joseph's death. Thanks to Steve Harper and Jordan Watkins we can read it here. Though many would prophesy of Mormonism's demise, it would not happen with the death of its first prophet of the Restoration.

There is plenty of possible additional reading. You can try here and here for some articles, but if you haven't read Richard Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling, it is about time. If you're like me, you won't want Joseph to die.

I could say a lot here. But, I'll end with a couple concluding thoughts. Elder Holland taught: [Joseph Smith’s] life asked and answered the question “Do you believe God speaks to man?” In all else that he accomplished in his brief 38 and a half years, Joseph left us the resolute legacy of divine revelation—not a single, isolated revelation without evidence or consequence, and not “a mild sort of inspiration seeping into the minds of all good people” everywhere, but specific, documented, ongoing directions from God.”  JRH continued, “As a good friend and faithful LDS scholar [Richard L. Bushman] has succinctly put it, “At a time when the origins of Christianity were under assault by the forces of Enlightenment rationality, Joseph Smith [unequivocally and singlehandedly] returned modern Christianity to its origins in revelation.” [Jeffrey R. Holland, “Prophets, Seers, and Revelators,” Ensign, Nov. 2004, 6; see Richard L. Bushman’s essay “A Joseph Smith for the Twenty-First Century” in Believing History (2004). Read the whole JRH talk here.]

Joseph Smith’s return of Christianity to revelation changed everything. Joseph Smith is a lens for us. As Latter-day Saints we see the gospel and we see the world through this lens. It is so ubiquitous sometimes sometimes we forget that it is there. This lens helps us to focus and to see things more clearly, it elucidates everything better. We all still see through a glass darkly--we still have a limited view of eternity here in mortality, but our view is clearer and more expansive because of Joseph. I understand my purpose here in mortality and my position standing before my God better because of Joseph. I will be eternally grateful for that.