The Work and the Glory (432 page)

Willard Richards, who was a very large man, miraculously had only the lower tip of his left ear grazed by a bullet, even though he stood in a room into which hundreds of shots were being fired. This fulfilled a remarkable prophecy made by Joseph over a year before. “Willard,” Joseph said, “the time will come when the balls shall fly around you like hail, and you shall see your friends fall on the right and on the left, but there shall not even be a hole in your garments.” (See
HC
6:619.)

Hyrum Smith’s watch was smashed completely by the ball that hit it from behind. But the bullet that hit John Taylor’s watch hit the face, his life thus being saved in two ways: the watch stopped the bullet from entering his body, and the impact of the ball threw him back into the room. The hands of the watch were stopped at sixteen minutes and twenty-six seconds after five p.m., marking forever the exact time that the tragedy struck. (See Roberts,
Life of John Taylor,
pp. 149–50.)

Joseph did hit some of the mob when he fired the pistol (see Don Cecil Corbett,
Mary Fielding Smith: Daughter of Britain
[Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1966], pp. 166–67).

The first message written by Willard Richards concerning the tragedy was not delivered to Nauvoo until sunup the next morning. By then, other riders had come in during the night with the news. But the first official confirmation was Willard’s letter. Elder Taylor had asked Elder Richards that in writing the message he downplay Elder Taylor’s wounds so that his family would not worry. (See
HC
6:621–22.)

On the night of the Martyrdom, long before the first word of the tragedy came to Nauvoo, a spirit of death pervaded the city. Bathsheba Smith—wife of George A. Smith, a member of the Twelve—said, “Such a barking and howling of dogs and bellowing of cattle all over the city of Nauvoo I never heard before nor since.” (See
Restoration,
p. 621.)

The reactions of both Emma and Mary Fielding Smith are drawn from historical records (see Gracia N. Jones,
Emma’s Glory and Sacrifice: A Testimony
[Hurricane, Utah: Homestead Publishers and Distributors, 1987], pp. 158–60; Corbett,
Mary Fielding Smith,
pp. 171–72). Mother Smith’s experience when first seeing her two martyred sons and the answers she received come directly from her own record of the events of that day (see Lucy Mack Smith,
History of Joseph Smith by His Mother,
ed. Preston Nibley [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954], pp. 324–25). Having the Steeds visit the Mansion House on that first evening that the bodies were brought back to Nauvoo—the evening of
28 June—is based on the statement in the historical record which says, “Relatives and particular friends were also permitted to view the remains during the evening” (
HC
6:627).

The prayer quoted by Nathan and Derek is now found in D&C 65.

Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it. In the short space of twenty years, he has brought forth the Book of Mormon, which he translated by the gift and power of God, and has been the means of publishing it on two continents; has sent the fulness of the everlasting gospel, which it contained, to the four quarters of the earth; has brought forth the revelations and commandments which compose this book of Doctrine and Covenants, and many other wise documents and instructions for the benefit of the children of men; gathered many thousands of the Latter-day Saints, founded a great city, and left a fame and name that cannot be slain. He lived great, and he died great in the eyes of God and his people; and like most of the Lord’s anointed in ancient times, has sealed his mission and his works with his own blood; and so has his brother Hyrum. In life they were not divided, and in death they were not separated! . . .

. . . The testators are now dead, and their testament is in force.

. . . They lived for glory; they died for glory; and glory is their eternal reward. From age to age shall their names go down to posterity as gems for the sanctified.

. . . Their innocent blood, with the innocent blood of all the martyrs under the altar that John saw, will cry unto the Lord of Hosts till he avenges that blood on the earth. Amen.

—John Taylor, Doctrine and Covenants 135:3, 5, 6, 7

Book Seven: The Work and the Glory - No Unhallowed Hand

The Work and the Glory - No Unhallowed Hand

Text illustrations by Robert T. Barrett

© 1996 Gerald N. Lund and Kenneth Ingalls Moe

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Deseret Book Company, P. O. Box 30178, Salt Lake City, Utah 84130. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Church or of Deseret Book Company.

Bookcraft is a registered trademark of Deseret Book Company.

First printing in hardbound 1996 First printing in paperbound 2001 First printing in trade paperbound 2006

Visit us at deseretbook.com

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-86634

ISBN 1-57008-277-4 (hardbound) ISBN 1-57345-876-7 (paperbound) ISBN-10  1-59038-725-2 (trade paperbound) ISBN-13  978-1-59038-725-2 (trade paperbound)

Printed in the United States of America 

Banta, Menasha, WI

10  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Preface

On a hot, sultry afternoon late in June, 1844, four men sat in the upper bedroom of the small rock jail in Carthage, Illinois. Charged falsely with treason, they waited in a town that was filled with hate for a trial that offered them little hope of justice. Shortly after five p.m., a mob, many with their faces painted black, stormed the jail. The guards posted there, as much the enemy to the prisoners as the infuriated mob was, fired a shot or two in the air, then conveniently fled.

It took no more than minutes. The men rushed up the stairs, forced the door, and unleashed a withering hail of bullets into the room. Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed; John Taylor lay severely wounded beneath the bed. Only Willard Richards miraculously escaped. With roars of delight, the killers left the jail and went home to congratulate one another and celebrate their triumph. Joseph was dead. His most likely successor was dead with him. They had done what many others had tried to do—in New York, in Ohio, in Missouri, and in Illinois. They had at last silenced the voice that was drawing people to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in what outsiders saw as alarming numbers. They had struck down the man most responsible for the rise of this hated and abominable religion. Joe Smith was dead at last. And with him his work would die as well.

How little did they know!

When Joseph Smith went into that grove of trees a short distance west of his home in the spring of 1820, he learned in an instant that what he was about to do—and to become—would be implacably opposed by hell in all its fury. From that moment on, the opposition began. He was mocked, ridiculed, criticized, and condemned. As he moved forward, following the will of the Lord, opposition rose around him in endless, bitter processions. When the mockery and the ridicule were not sufficient to deter him, more serious means became the norm. He was slandered, vilified, shot at, beaten, thrown into court again and again, dragged from his home, cursed, spit upon, tarred and feathered.

Joseph had no illusions about how men felt about him. He once wrote: “As for the perils which I am called to pass through, they seem but a small thing to me, as the envy and wrath of man have been my common lot all the days of my life; and for what cause it seems mysterious, unless I was ordained from before the foundation of the world, for some good end, or bad, as you may choose to call it. Judge ye for yourselves. God knoweth all these things, whether it be good or bad. But, nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in; it all has become second nature to me. And I feel, like Paul, to glory in tribulation: for to this day has the God of my fathers delivered me out of them all, and will deliver me from henceforth; for behold, and lo, I shall triumph over all my enemies, for the Lord God hath spoken it.” (History of the Church 5:143.)

From the beginning, however, the Lord also made it clear that there would be no ultimate triumph for those who sought to destroy the work. “The works, and the designs, and the purposes of God cannot be frustrated,” he said in July of 1828, “neither can they come to naught. . . . Remember, remember that it is not the work of God that is frustrated, but the work of men.” (D&C 3:1, 3.) And again he said, “I will not suffer that they shall destroy my work; yea, I will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil” (D&C 10:43).

It didn’t take long for those who had shoved the muzzles of their rifles into the upper room of the Carthage jail to realize that while they had killed Joseph Smith, they had not slowed in any way the work he had begun. Stunned, horrified, shocked into numbness by the brutal loss of their beloved leader, for a time it looked as though the Saints were vulnerable to collapse. Who would lead the Church now? Who could possibly take over from one as gifted and inspired as Joseph Smith? Would the Church collapse into various splinters as this man or that stepped forward to ever so humbly claim that he was the one chosen to take over the reins? To the outside observer, for a time it looked as though the enemies had done their work well. But to those with eyes of faith, there was never any doubt. While Joseph was a prophet and leader of unusual and unique abilities—one of the greatest of all the prophets to ever live—the Church was not his, nor did the work depend on him alone. Joseph Smith was but an instrument in God’s hands. He himself testified to that again and again during his lifetime. It was not the Church of Joseph Smith of Latter-day Saints. It was the Church of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ was still at the head.

Six weeks to the day following the Martyrdom, the Lord gave a miraculous and marvelous indication of how his church should be led and who should lead it. Brigham Young—barely known outside the circles of the Church, but long faithful in his service—would now step forward and take the Church onward. The work was only beginning, and it was time to move on to new tasks, new horizons, new visions, new places of settlement.

It didn’t take long for the enemies of the Church to realize that they had not destroyed the work after all. Nauvoo did not disintegrate with Joseph’s death. Instead, converts to the Church from all across America and Europe continued to flock to it. Over five hundred missionaries were sent into the world in 1844 alone! By the time of the exodus in early 1846, there was an estimated eleven to twelve thousand people in Nauvoo alone. There were more than a dozen other surrounding communities with another four or five thousand Latter-day Saints. That could hardly be defined as a collapse.

Soon the enemies were raging again. The Nauvoo Charter was revoked. Editorial writers fumed and foamed and once again began to use words like expulsion and extermination. Committees met, politicians lobbied, “law-abiding citizens” began to talk about law not being enough. Brigham Young and the Twelve became the target of frivolous lawsuits and criminal indictments. And when none of that stopped the work, once again they turned to other means—the torch, the night rider, powder and ball, murder.

In this seventh volume of The Work and the Glory
,
the days and months and years following the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith are depicted. The Steeds are part of the tumultuous events which unfold as the Church moves forward on its destined course. Two things become clearly evident during this time period. First, that this work is not the work of man, not even a man of Joseph Smith’s greatness. Therefore, while his death is a great tragedy, it is not a termination. The second lesson is that just as before, when the enemies of the Church thought they had “solved the Mormon problem” once and for all, the Church comes through the smoke and haze of battle more majestic, more solid, and stronger than ever before. In Liberty Jail, Joseph was told: “As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri river in its decreed course, or to turn it up stream, as to hinder the Almighty” (D&C 121:33). So it was here. As well might the mobs and the politicians and the lawless try to stop the mighty Mississippi as to halt the work of God. No Unhallowed Hand
describes this time of great tragedy and ultimate triumph. The Saints’ experience from 1844 to 1846 is a powerful testimony, after all else is said and done, of the declaration of God himself that it is his work and his glory, and no mere mortal shall ever stop it.