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John Taylor set the five mentioned apart and gave them
authority to perform marriage ceremonies, and also to set others apart
to do the same thing as long as they remained on the earth; and while doing
so, the Prophet Joseph Smith stood by directing the proceedings. Two of
us had not met the Prophet Joseph Smith in his mortal lifetime, and we--Charles
H. Wilkins and myself--were introduced to him and shook hands with him.
Joseph Musser reported the following additional information
relating to the Prophet's role in the proceedings:
Instructions to the five: "You will have the weight of
this world upon you and one of you will have to stand alone." Joseph
Smith laid his hands upon their heads while John Taylor set them apart,
or acted as mouth. (1)
This physical contact implies that Joseph Smith was a
resurrected being in 1886. (2) There is
some confusion in Fundamentalist circles, however, concerning exactly when
the alleged resurrection took place.
There seems to have been a rumor circulating among some
of the early Saints that Brigham Young brought the bodies of Joseph and
Hyrum Smith to the Salt Lake Valley by wagon and buried them on Temple
Square. Fundamentalists have believed and circulated this rumor. Charles
W. Kingston, a contemporary of Lorin Woolley, gave the following testimony
on this subject:
Lorin Woolley said that the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum
Smith were dug up, put in new caskets, and brought to the Salt Lake Valley
at a very early date. Lorin further stated that the bodies were buried
in the Salt Lake temple grounds. (3)
The following account is taken from the journal of Fundamentalist
Robert Shrewsberry:
Patriarch Harrison Sperry (died abt. 1928 at age of almost
99) told Bro. Worth Kilgrow (told the story to him three times) that B[righam]
Y[oung], H. C. Kimball and Bro. Wilcox (Amanda H. Wilcox's husband) went
back to the Mansion House at Nauvoo (Joseph's home) in 1848 and dug up
the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum and brought them to Salt Lake in a sealed
wagon.
When they arrived late in the fall of 1848 they opened
up the wagon. He, Bro. Sperry, saw the bodies, with a few other trusted
ones, lying in their caskets, side by side. He said they looked very natural,
almost as tho asleep. He was about fifteen yrs. old at the time. He told
this story a year or two before he died. . . . Dictated to me by Bro. W.
Kilgrow in Jan. l939. (4)
Let us investigate the validity of this claim.
Brigham Young's journal for 1848 does not report his making
a trip back to Nauvoo. He spent the early summer of 1848 at Winter Quarters
prior to returning to Salt Lake City. Further, the Prophet Joseph Smith
instructed Brigham Young, and perhaps others, concerning where he wished
to be buried and thus to rise from in the resurrection:
While Joseph was alive he said, "If I am slain in battle or fall by the hands of my enemies I want my body brought to Nauvoo and laid in the tomb I have prepared." (5) We are determined also to use every means in our power
to do all that Joseph told us. And we will petition Sister Emma in the
name of Israel's God, to let us deposit the remains of Joseph according
as he commanded us. And if she will not consent to it, our garments are
clear. Then when he awakes in the morning of the resurrection, he will
talk with them, not with me; the sin shall be upon her head, not ours.
(6)
In a letter written in 1904 to Bishop David McKay of Huntsville,
President Joseph F. Smith confirmed the fulfillment of the Prophet's request:
The story about the bodies of the Prophets Joseph and
Hyrum Smith having been brought to this country by the pioneers is a fallacy;
they were buried in Nauvoo, and their resting place remains undisturbed.
(7)
John Musser differs in belief with the rank and file of
Fundamentalism. He reported:
John Taylor said at the Carlisle home to L. C. W. [Lorin
C. Woolley], "Joseph Smith, as a resurrected being, guided Brigham Young
across the plains and led him to Utah. His remains were not brought to
Utah by wagon as many have supposed. (8)
Lorin C. Woolley told J. W. Musser: "... Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff and, of course, Joseph Smith, had been resurrected, and that Joseph Smith, in resurrected form, had led the people to these mountains in 1847." (9) Daniel R. Bateman related: "President John Taylor, told,
in my presence, time and time again, that Joseph and Hyrum, in their resurrected
bodies, had led the Saints to these valleys, going before the first Company
of emigrants. Prest. Woodruff and Prest. Snow also made the same statement
in my hearing." (10)
If Lorin Woolley had read the Journal of Discourses
he would have found that Brigham Young repudiated the idea of Joseph
and Hyrum being resurrected at the time the first pioneers crossed the
plains. On March 15, 1857, some ten years after the Saints' arrival in
the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young stated:
Joseph is not resurrected; and if you will visit the graves you will find the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum yet in their resting place. Do not be mistaken about that; they will be resurrected in due time. Jesus had a work to do on the earth. He performed his mission, and then was slain for his testimony. So it has been with every man who has been fore-ordained to perform certain important missions. Joseph truly said, "No power can take away my life, until my work is done." All the powers of earth and hell could not take his life, until he had completed the work the Father gave him to do; until that was done, he had to live. When he died he had a mission in the spirit world, as much so as Jesus had... . there is an almighty work to perform in the spirit world,. . . he will be resurrected, but he has not yet done there.... As quick as Joseph finishes his mission in the spirit world, he will be resurrected.... When Jesus was resurrected they found the linen, but the
body was not there. When Joseph is resurrected, you may find the linen
that enshrouded his body, but you will not find his body in the grave,
no more than the disciples found the body of Jesus when they looked where
it was lain. (11)
These remarks of Brigham Young should forever dispel the
idea that Joseph Smith was a resurrected being when the Saints crossed
the plains. In order to preserve his belief in Lorin Woolley and Daniel
Bateman, however, Joseph Musser was forced to brand Brigham Young as a
public deceiver because he gave the above-cited discourse negating the
rumor of Joseph's resurrection.
John Taylor left this testimony that the Prophet Joseph
Smith guided Brigham Young across the plains as a resurrected being. His
remains were not brought here in a wagon and buried under the tabernacle.
Pres. Young's statement in 1854 (sic), stating that Joseph Smith was not
yet resurrected, was apparently given to mislead the people.
(12)
None of the presiding authorities of the Church have ever
taught that the Prophet Joseph Smith has been resurrected. Wilford Woodruff
stated in 1880 that Joseph Smith was then in the spirit world, but had
advanced in station there from others who had since followed him:
I have had many interviews with Brother Joseph until the
last 15 or 20 years of my life; I have not seen him for that length of
time. But during my travels in the southern country last winter I had many
interviews with President Young, and with Heber C. Kimball, and Geo. A.
Smith, and Jedediah M. Grant, and many others who are dead. . . . the thought
came to me that Brother Joseph had left the work of watching over this
church and kingdom to others, and that he had gone ahead, and that he had
left this work to men who have lived and labored with us since he left
us. This idea manifested itself to me, that such men advance in the spirit
world. (13)
Erastus Snow taught in 1884 that neither Joseph, Hyrum,
nor any other member of this dispensation had yet been resurrected--that
it was an event then future:
The Prophet Joseph Smith shall come unto us again. He
has merely taken another mission in advance of us. He fulfilled the mission
given unto him on earth. The Lord was satisfied with his labors here. He
lived long enough to endow his brethren with full authority to carry on
the work that he had begun on the earth. He took his departure behind the
veil. . . . The time is drawing near (much nearer than scarcely any of
us can now comprehend) when Joseph will be clothed upon with im mortality,
when his brother Hyrum will be clothed upon with immortality, when the
martyrs will be raised from the dead, together with their faithful brethren
who have performed a good mission in the spirit world--they, too, will
be called to assist in the work of the glorious resurrection.
(14)
President Joseph F. Smith taught in 1910 that the Prophet
was not then resurrected. He concurs with the doctrine taught on this point
by Brigham Young and Erastus Snow, teachings that are cited above.
This gospel revealed to the Prophet Joseph is al ready
being preached to the spirits in prison, to those who have passed away
from this stage of action into the spirit world without the knowledge of
the gospel. Joseph Smith is preaching that gospel to them. So is Hyrum
Smith. So is Brigham Young, and so are all the faithful apostles that lived
in this dispensation under the administration of the Prophet Joseph. They
are there, having carried with them from here the holy Priesthood that
they received under authority, and which was conferred upon them in the
flesh; they are preaching the gospel to the spirits in prison; for Christ,
when his body lay in the tomb, went to. proclaim liberty to the captives
and opened the prison doors to them that were bound.
(15)
That Joseph and Hyrum were not resurrected in 1886 may
be further borne out by the fact that the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints exhumed their bodies in 1928. Samuel O. Bennion, then
President of the East Central States Mission, with three others, upon hearing
about the exhumation, drove from In dependence to Nauvoo, and they arrived
just after the bodies had been disinterred. He wrote in a report to President
Heber J. Grant:
Fred(rick) M. (Smith, President of the Reorganized Church) took me upstairs where they were photographing and taking measurements of the skulls of Joseph and Hyrum. I could hardly keep the tears back when I saw these men handling these skulls like they were just common ordinary skulls and I said to Fred M. Why don't you let the bodies of these men rest where they were, it seemed a terrible thing to disturb their graves. He answered me, by saying that he wanted to find out if the graves of these men were down by what was called the Spring House and rather evasively avoided my question, but told me that he did not know exactly where they were buried and he wanted to find out. It is my impression brethren that he had heard reports that Brigham Young took the bodies ofJoseph and Hyrum to Utah and that he wanted to prove it untrue. He did not mention that but in an indirect way he did. I said to him "Didn't your father tell you where these bodies were laid?" And he answered "Yes." I told him his father had told me where they were and that I was convinced that they were there close to the foot of Emma Smith's grave. The lowerjaw of Hyrum Smith isjust as near like the pictures of Hyrum as it could be. His jaw was very large and was quite square especially at the chin compared with Joseph's. Joseph's jaw was more pointed, but Hyrum's was a little more square all around than Joseph's. These men must have been big because their lower jaws were extra large and strong. The bullet that killed Hyrum entered into his face near
the lower part of his nose on the right side and broke his upper jaw just
above the teeth. The break shows very distinctly where the bullet entered
the face, because the bone was broken and the bullet went in an upward
direc tion right under the eye and came out on the other side of his head,just
a little above his ear and toward the front. (16)
If Joseph's and Hyrum's bodies were exhumed in 1928, we may logically assume that they had not previously been resurrected. We may confidently conclude with Brigham Young: "When Joseph is resurrected, you may find the linen that enshrouded his body, but you will not find his body in the grave.". . (17) All the evidence points to the fact that the Prophet is still laboring in the spirit world. If Joseph Smith was laboring in the spirit world in 1910, and if his body was exhumed in 1928, he certainly was not a resurrected being in 1886; therefore, he could not possibly have appeared and participated in an ordinance by laying his hands on someone's head, and he could not have shaken hands with Lorin Woolley and Charles Wilcken at the conclusion. This is another facet of the Woolley account that does not ring true and that does not correspond with the facts of history.
1. Items from the Book of Remembrance of Joseph W. Musser, p. 23. Italics added. 2. See D&C 129:4-7, and Documentary History of the Church 3:392, 4:571-8 1. 3. Baird and Baird, Reminiscences of John W. Woolley and Lorin C. Woolley, vol. 3, p.25 4. Baird and Baird, Reminiscences of John W. Woolley and Lorin C. Woolley, vol. 3, pp. 26-27. 5. Documentary History of the Church 7:256. 6. Documentary History of the Church 7:473. 7. Joseph F. Smith Letter File, 1904. Church Archives, Salt Lake City; see also First Presidency Decisions, 2:28, Church Archives. 8. Items from the Book of Remembrance of Joseph W. Musser, p. 2. 9. Joseph Musser Journal, April 23, 1930. 10. Joseph Musser Journal, April 6, 1935. 11. Journal of Discourses 4:285-86. 12. Cited in the minutes of a Fundamentalist meeting of June 29, 1952, p. 2. Copy in possession of the author. The above remarks of Brigham Young came as a result of a comment of Heber C. Kimball that President Young feared might be misinterpreted by the Saints, so he spoke to dispel any speculation or false doctrine. President Young logically would have left the subject untouched rather than purposely deceive. 13. Journal of Discourses 21:317-18. 14. Journal of Discourses 25:32-34. 15. Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine, p. 471. 16. Samuel O. Bennion to Heber J. Grant, January 21, 1928, Church Archives, Salt Lake City. |
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