sign in sign up
<<
Home , Temple Square

_

\., FOREWORD

Since its first presentation, requests for copies of this unique work have continued with unre- mitting persistence. Heard first on lecture tour of the East, it was later presented at the and COPYRIGHT 1950 sponsored by the General Board of the Mutual GRACE JOHNSON Improvement Association for a tour of Church of All rights reserved. Christ of Latter-day Saints stakes of , Idaho, the West Coast and Nevada. An achievement in organization, The Mor- mon Miracle presents in brief and sweeping pano- rama, a picture of the restored Gospel—both his- torical and theological. It does not argue or try to persuade. It tells the story and lets events speak for themselves. THE PUBLISHERS

Published by DF,SERET B00% COMPANY THE MORMON MIRACLE By GRACE JOHNSON

SINGLE occurrence may set in motion a eA chain of events that covers years . . . even centuries. Because a boy of fourteen went into the woods to pray, years later, a man of thirty-eight waited in an upper room of a two-story jail. The jail was in Carthage, Illinois. The year, 1844. The time, 5:00 P.M. The man knew he was going to die. It wasn't the blackened faces of the merciless mob outside, that told him. It wasn't the treachery of his jailors. It was a prophetic foreknowledge, that, days before, as he traveled to surrender himself, prompted him to say, "I go as a lamb to the slaughter. I shall die innocent. And it shall yet be said of me, 'He was murdered in cold blood.' The man heard the mob storm the jail. Heard their yells—savage, obscene. Thirty-eight is young to die. The man looked to the window. The mob 5 crashed the door. Heavy feet pounded the stairs. Utah and made a first winter's shelter in a damp, The man moved to the window. . . . earthy dugout. Shots . . . from the door . . . the window! The Because a boy of fourteen went into the woods man's body jerked, contorted. The rest of his life's to pray, I was born in America instead of Scandi- story is told in a crashing window. A falling body. navia. And, because a boy of fourteen went into And a dying voice crying . . . "0 Lord—my God. . . ." the woods to pray, I am writing this story today. Because I am a Mormon, writing of Mormons, I cannot write dispassionately. What I shall say will be colored by the hues of heroic drama. By violence Because a boy fourteen went into the woods to of life and death. Sublime faith, deep and moving pray, years later, another mob sent splintering glass tragedy. By curse; prayer; ; tomahawk. . . . into the cradle of a sleeping infant in Denmark. And my great-grandmother, looking anxiously toward * 0 0 * * the cradle, threw her body against the barred door of a Danish homestead, while my great-grandfather It was on a clear morning in the spring of 1820, fled his would-be murderers, and hid under a great that the boy went into the woods to pray. The copper kettle! woods were near Palmyra, New York—the boy's Because a boy of fourteen went into the woods name was Joseph Smith. to pray, my great-grandfather, with his family, fled Large of frame, and dressed in the homespuns Denmark in a sailing ship, arriving at New Orleans of the western New York backwoods, there was after a six weeks' ordeal on a stormy Atlantic. nothing impressive about him, nor about the log Because a boy of fourteen went into the woods cabin from which he had come. to pray, my great-grandmother died of exhaustion Crossing the field on his way to the woods, he at St. Louis, and my great-grandfather, mothering noticed many things. The dew on the grass under and fathering a brood of six children, drove a cov- his feet. The bird that took flight from a fence-top. ered wagon from St. Louis to a desert desolation in But when he returned, he noticed nothing. He 6 7 walked unsteadily. His face was white and strained. of a New York backwoods cabin, to a four million Entering the cabin, he moved to the fireplace and dollar granite temple, erected in a desert, in the first leaned weakly against the mantle. generation of its existence, and a subsequent ful- "Why, son," asked his mother, alarmed, "What fillment that characterizes the miraculous in Ameri- is the matter?" can historic drama. After a hundred years, America is becoming For a moment the boy was silent. Then speak- increasingly conscious of this enigmatic phenom- ing slowly and with great effort, he answered, enon; of the provoking challenge to inquiry. After "Mother . . . I have found out . . . for myself that . . . a hundred years, Americans everywhere are asking, your church . . . is not true." "But son," his mother protested, "how do you "How did it all happen?" know that my church is not true?" a With his answer, Joseph Smith precipitated a tragic and tumultuous drama, that stretched from a To comprehend the Mormon Miracle, you must New York woodland to the desert valleys of Utah. comprehend the ingredients that went into its mak- Gathering momentum from the instant of its ing. inception, it held within itself, a compelling force You must picture the year 1820, and the hum- that nothing could stop. The persecutions that ble folk of the western New York backwoods caught evicted it from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Mis- in the fervor of religious revival. A setting of woods souri, and Illinois, could not stop it. Mobs, killings, and sky. The sound of singing. The exhortations beatings, burnings, could not stop it. An America of contending preachers, each proclaiming his own that expelled them from its civilization—men, wom- I church the only avenue of escape from the horrors en, aged and babies—in the dead of winter, could of a burning hell. An atmosphere of emotional not stop it. Prairie, mountain, desert, Indian, death conversion. Frenzied prayer. "Amen!" and "Halle- and starvation, could not stop it. With the inevi- lujah!" tability of ocean tides, it swept from the extremities On the rim of the crowd, you must see the 8 9 boy—arms too long for his homespun coat, looking his knees. And from there on, you must hear the on—bewildered, dubious. Revolted at the spectacle boy's story in his own words. of professors of religion, who, having made con- "I kneeled down, and began to offer up the versions, forthwith engaged in vociferous quarrel- desires of my heart unto God. Scarcely had I done ing over the converts. so, when immediately, I was seized upon by some You must see him walking home—underneath power that entirely overcame me and had such an the stars; his earnest young face perplexed. Im- astonishing influence over me so as to bind my pelled by a desire to join God's only true church, tongue so I could not speak. Thick darkness gath- yet honestly repelled by claimants to this holy ered round me and it seemed as if I were doomed authority. to sudden destruction. . . . You must picture him within the cabin—por- "At the very moment when I was about to sink ing over his Bible by candlelight. His face brighten- into despair, . . . just at this moment of great alarm, ing as his eyes alight on James 1:5. "If any of you I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, which lack wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth to all descended until it gradually fell upon me. men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given.. . "No sooner had it appeared than I felt delivered from the enemy that held me bound. When the light It does not say if any great king or statesman rested upon me, I saw two personages whose bright- lack wisdom, it says "any of you!" That may mean ness and glory defy all description, standing above even the very humble . . . even a backwoods boy in me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling homespuns. . . . me by name, and said, pointing to the other, "This Now, you must see him on the morrow. Now is my beloved Son, hear Him. . . ." he is within the wood—the trees and underbrush "My purpose in going to inquire of the Lord stand thick. Yes, he is alone. Suddenly he is filled was to ask which of all the sects was right, that I with an awkward sense of embarrassment, but The might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, Book said "any of you. . . . Slowly he drops to did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to 10 11 speak, than I asked the personages who stood before prisoned in vile jails, cold, filthy, without a bed to me in the air, which of all the sects was right and lie on,—sickened with rotting foods. Not even when which I should join. he was abducted, stripped and beaten—his bleeding "I was answered that I should join none of body covered with tar and feathers and left for them, . . . and the personage who addressed me, dead. Not even when his followers were driven said that those professors were all corrupt, that they from state to state, and Governor Boggs of draw near to me with their lips but their hearts are issued his exterminating order. Not even when he far from me; Teaching for doctrines the command- looked out of the windows of a jail in Carthage, ments of men, having a form of godliness but deny- Illinois, to the blackened faces of a mob bent on ing the power thereof. . . . his murder. He died affirming them. And his "When I came to myself, I found myself on my bullet-ridden body crashed backward out of a sec- back. . . . looking up into heaven. . ond story window to be seized by the mob, propped You must return now, to the interior of the against the curb of a well, and brutally shot again cabin. Picture the boy at the fireside. He sways a and again after it was dead. little, hand clutching the mantle. But if his enemies thought death silenced him, "But son," his mother repeats, anxiously scan- they were wrong. In life he had but one voice. In ning his face, "how do you know that my church is death he acquired a thousand. They spread from not true?" city to city and nation to nation, and finally en- "Because," the boy answered slowly, "I have circled the globe. Impassioned in their anguished seen and talked with God the Father and His Son affirmation, they still are ringing down the years. . . . Jesus Christ, and they told me so." "For I had actually seen a light. And in the The vital spark of the miracle lies in the fact midst of that light, I saw two personages. And that he never denied these words. Not even when they did in reality speak to me. And though I was he was hounded like a fugitive from six states. Not hated and persecuted for saying I had seen a vision, even when he was arrested thirty-eight times—im- yet it was true. And while they were hating me, 12 13 reviling me, and saying all manner of evil against The man died fourteen hundred years ago. me falsely for so saying, I was led to say in my heart, He returned to earth, so the boy declared, in the Why persecute me for telling the truth? And who year 1823, standing in his room in an aura of white am I that I can withstand God? And why does the light, and told the boy that the records of ancient world think to make me deny what I have actually peoples were buried beneath a stone, on a hillside seen? For I had seen a vision. I knew it. And I not far from the boy's home. knew God knew it. And I could not deny it; neither To comprehend the Mormon Miracle, you dared I do it." must now visualize a series of strange and exciting scenes. You must picture the boy, now seventeen, climbing the slopes of a New York hill. Because in the year 1820, a boy of fourteen It is fall and the grass under his feet is tinged went into the woods to pray, a century later, a Salt with brown. Eyes bright with excitement, he scans Lake City tourist looked upward to a gilded statue each rock as he sees it. atop a lofty spire of a great granite temple. This? No. That is too big . . . too rough. This? It is the statue of a man in a robe—a trumpet No, that is too. . . . This? Yes, This is the one . . . to his lips. The statue measures over twelve feet rounding at the center and sloping toward the in height. It is made of hammered copper, covered edges. . . . with gold leaf. Stooping, he inserts a lever at the stone's edge It is symbolical of no mythical figure, but an and lifts. It is true!—there are golden plates . . American who knew much more of the geography held together by three rings at the side. of this country than you or I. He fought mile by Gold . . . Oh, the things gold will buy! Eagerly mile over the greater part of it. His ancestors were he reaches out his arms but is stunned by sudden the pilgrim fathers of twenty-six hundred years ago. physical shock. There . . . in the air above, stands Their descendants left vast ruins in South and Cen- that same heavenly messenger. tral America. No . . . he must not take the plates. Not now. 14 15 He must return to this spot every year for four "Joe Smith and his golden plates . . . lies . . . years. Then he shall have the plates and translate kill him! . . . them. "Joseph Smith, a latter-day prophet. . . . God And now you must hurdle the interim of the preserve his life. . . . " years and picture the actual scene of translation! To comprehend the Mormon Miracle, you must If An attic bedroom in a humble home in Pennsyl- now open the book and watch its living drama arise vania. from its pages: In the room are two young men . . . Joseph, You must imagine, if you can, God, the Father, now twenty-one, and a young man named Oliver contemplating the planet, Earth . . . spinning on its Cowdery. Joseph is separated from Oliver by a axis out in purple space. drawn curtain. Hour after hour, Joseph is poring It is the work of His creative mastery. He has over the golden plates . . . assisted by the stones or organized it out of the ever-present substance of the translators . . . turning ancient characters into the Universe. He has seen it through its successive spiritual and political drama of three American peo- creative steps: a gaseous mass; a fiery ball; a cooling, ples. Oliver, the scribe, his pile of manuscript grow- steaming sphere; and lastly—a planet of oceans, ing . . . implements of pen and ink . . . becoming lands, lakes, rivers. scenes of high adventure, violence, spiritual ecstasy; You must imagine God, the Father, observing degeneracy; death. this revolving world. Observing the shape of conti- Now the book is at the publishers, volume by nents . . . islands . . . scrutinizing a land mass we volume dropping from the printer's bindery, its know as North and South America. Christening this cover stamped: BOOK OF MORMON. continental block, the land of Zion. Reserving it as Reaction is swift. J a land of liberty and freedom, choice above all other "A fraud. A gross imposture. A work of the lands. Declaring that he that doth possess it shall devil!" serve God or be swept off. That whatsoever nation "This book is true. A work of God. . . . American doth possess it shall be free from bondage and Scriptures." 16 17 captivity and from all other nations under heaven if colonies, that ignored the condition, and after a they will but serve the God of the land who is Jesus civilization of fourteen hundred years, perished in Christ. the colossal suicide of civil war. Left its records Next, you must visualize the peopling of the and the whitening bones of its unburied dead—a Asiatic Continent and three successive immigrations grim warning to later pilgrims, who anchored their to the Americas under the guiding hand of God. The rude wooden ship off South America's western first arriving as long ago as two thousand years be- shores a forgotten day twenty-six hundred years fore Christ. ago. And now you must hear voices rising from the Visualize now, if you can, the spiritual black and white of the printed page. The voice of crescendo in the lives of these nations, with the com- God crying through the lips of Ancient American ing of the resurrected Christ to this land. Two hun- prophets to Americans of our day, whom he chose dred years of spiritual and economic utopia, to call Gentiles. A people confronted with the terror followed by two hundred years of decline. The of atomic bombs and annihilating secret weapons. rise of class hatreds, and the complete loss of the "And this shall be a land of liberty unto the brotherhood of man. Gentiles. And there shall be no kings upon this Here, may I introduce a great American general land who shall rise up unto the Gentiles. And I will named Mormon. Spiritual, military and educational fortify this land against all other nations. And he advisor of his people, who performed the stupendous that fighteth against Zion shall perish, saith God. literary task of abridging the records of ancient For he that raiseth up a king against me shall perish. Americans. For I, the Lord, the King of Heaven, will be their May I present his son, Moroni, prophet, war- king. . . . " A ringing promise of freedom coupled rior, hero of that last and terrible holocaust of civil with the restrictive condition: -If you will but serve war that swept mile by mile across these United the God of the land who is Jesus Christ." States. Across fields that now know the peace of Now you must observe the first of the ancient waving grains. Garden plots blessed with the color 18 19 Joseph Smith declared the supreme worth of human the heroic pageantry that inspired the voice of a personality. The body an instrument of infinite people still audible over a hundred years. dignity and importance. Couched in the authori- tative language of "Thus saith the Lord," the Mor- ( Jackson County, Missouri, 1833.) "Move on!" mon prophet pronounced a revolutionary concept VOICE OF A PEOPLE of man and his destiny. The universe, he taught, exists for the develop- Father . . . is this Thy kingdom of heaven on ment of human individuality. Nothing is more im- earth? Mobs, killings, burnings, beatings? Surely portant than man's development. All things con- there is no sight so terrible as a whip falling upon a verge in him. All the spiritual forces of the uni- naked back. First a welt . . . then a bloody line . . . verse find focus in him. then a lash on raw and bleeding flesh. . . . Shut out To a humanity immersed in a vast feeling of the sight! Shut out the sight of twelve hundred inferiority, believing anything worthy must be some- homeless under rain-drenched skies. . . . thing entirely different from itself, Joseph Smith There, my baby, I have no shelter to give you taught that life as we know it, is the pattern of but the bend of my back above you. This is not being. Things as they were, are, and forever shall rain you feel, these are my tears. . . . My tears are be. Men and women, who love and marry and have but one with the tears of twelve hundred homeless, children, who learn the laws of the universe and under pouring skies. how to advance within them. 0, Father, forgive. . . . These are the words of You are the greatest miracle you will ever see! the flesh, not the spirit. . . . Child of divine parentage—eternal in nature, and forever expanding. Advancing in progressive cycles ( Clay County, Missouri, 1836.) "Move on . . . 1" of living, loving, learning—toward a goal of eternal VOICE OF A PEOPLE Godhood. Undoubtedly, it was this theology, permeating Yesterday, homes . . . Gardens . . . Waving 22 23 fields of grain . . . Today, weary feet plodding . . . VOICE OF A PEOPLE Wagon wheels rolling. . . . The prophet . . . murdered? Martyred? Now (Ray, Gallatin, DeWitt Counties, Missouri. . . . what shall we do? We are sheep without a shep- 1838.) "Move on or be exterminated!" herd! VOICE OF A PEOPLE (Nauvoo, Illinois, 1845.) "Move on!" Not only the yell of mobs but the exterminating VOICE OF A PEOPLE order of Governor Boggs of Missouri. Fifteen thou- sand homeless, from Ohio . . . Missouri . . . Weary Move on? Where? We have moved on until feet plodding, wagon wheels rolling. . . . we are on the fringe of the frontier. Would you toss men, women, aged and babies out to perish (Nauvoo, Illinois, 1842. . . . ) on a blizzard-swept plain? Mercy . . . we beg of VOICE OF A PEOPLE you.. Father, this is Thy kingdom of heaven on earth. (1846) "Move on! NOW. . . ." Yesterday, a malarial swamp in a great horseshoe (Winter 1846) bend of the Mississippi. Today, a beautiful city with homes and streets, a university and a rising VOICE OF A PEOPLE temple. Now I have the culture and security I have always wanted for my children. . . . Weary feet plodding . . . Wagons rolling . . . slipping on the ice of the Mississippi. . . . (Nauvoo, Illinois, 1843.) "Move on!" Father, don't let the ice break and let families, teams and wagons down into the black and swirling VOICE OF A PEOPLE waters of the Mississippi. It's breaking! No . . . No. Move on! Again? No! . . . It holds . . . See oxen straining up the bank. . . . (Nauvoo, Illinois, 1844. . . . ) (Winter. The prairie-1846.) Exposure. Starva- 24 25

La- tion. Disease. Death. Despair. The voice of the . . . the forward roll of covered wagon. The prairie new leader, ...... Indian . . . Distance . . . Dust . . . Death. . . . Father, I know now there is nothing so hard as BRIGHAM YOUNG to bury a child upon the plain. The tender little body. The hand that crept so confidently into mine. Come, my people, laughter has not died from To be left for the tearing fang of wolf? Nol You the world. Play, you bands! Sing, dance, you peo- move on. I stay here with my baby. . . . ple! Swing your partners. First four forward and Father . . . forgive. . . . We know that nothing back. is lost. . . . We shall have this little one again. . . . VOICE OF A PEOPLE Come, come, ye saints . . . no toil nor labor fear . . . but with joy wend your way. . . . Though hard to Listen! Drums. Marching feet. The United you this journey may appear . . . grace shall be as States and Mexico at war. What travesty is this? yourday. . . . The United States wants five hundred able-bodied ( Wyoming. The Sweetwater Country. 1848. ) men from her outcast pilgrims, refused their con- stitutional rights of religious liberty. Tell them! . . . VOICE OF A PEOPLE Tell them . . . Yes. If we cannot find enough young men we shall take the old men. If there are not The winter has come too early. We have come enough old men, we shall take the women. . . . too late! Two hundred caught in freezing blizzards. Men, women, oxen, freezing, dying. My beloved ( Summer, the prairie, 1847. . . . ) wife laid in the cold earth of Wyoming. Not even her name scratched on a stone to tell an Indian there VOICE OF A PEOPLE is a white body buried here to be dug up and muti- Fifteen thousand faces turned toward the lated. Only sixty left to move on. . . . setting sun. Gee, Haw! The forward strain of oxen (1847—'48—'49. . . . ) 26 27 VOICE OF A PEOPLE Out of a nation. . . . Out of life. . . . What voice is this? This is the place? This desert and the salten sea? VOICE OF ONE BELOVED BRIGHAM YOUNG It is I, beloved. . . . Your wife. . . . whose body This is the place and it shall blossom as the you laid in the cold earth of Wyoming. . . . Don't be rose. And now, brethren, move on. frightened. . . . Death is like passing from one room to another. . . . Take my hand. . . . Now. . . . now you VOICE OF A PEOPLE are here. . . . Come, hand in hand we shall go. . . . Move on! home. . . .

BRIGHAM YOUNG And now, the curtain of the years drops down. Assuredly. This is not to be a single city . . . but Gone the heroic pageantry. Instead, the glow of a far-flung commonwealth of towns, cities. Move on neon light. Blare of radio. Roar of airplane, and . . . East . . . North . . . West . . . and South. . . . spangled brilliance of electrically lighted cities. (1847-'48-'49-'50-'51-'52-'53. . . . ) Streamlined traffic moves through the spacious streets of , spiritual capital of a mil- VOICE OF A PEOPLE lion souls. Elevators rise in luxurious hotels, and Wagon wheels still rolling . . . weary feet still from Temple Square, the voice of the great Mormon plodding . . . Choir floats across the net-works of the nation. Listen—war whoop! War cry! Indians! Corral, But up there in the shimmering starshine, there corral! . . . Ah. . . . The arrow in my heart was such is other sight and sound. A boy of fourteen—arms swift agony, I did not feel the taking of my scalp. . . . too long for his homespun coat. "For I had seen a It is the end. Move on. . . . From state to state. . . . vision" . . . Blackened faces at . A fall- 28 29 ing body. . . . "0 Lord, my God". . . . "Gee haw!" the westward roll of covered wagon. Yellow eyes at a prairie grave. . . . Time — a people looking backward upon a mighty epic. All because, a boy of fourteen. . . . went into the woods. . . . to pray.

30