Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  Nathan blinked. “You were?”

  “Yes, to thank you for today.”

  “Emma already did.”

  Joseph was dressed in a long-sleeved shirt open at the neck. Suspenders held up woolen trousers which were tucked into boots that came almost to his knees. At Nathan’s demure comment, he shook his head, his eyes troubled. “I usually get a few ugly comments whenever I’m in the village, but I didn’t think they would confront Emma.” He turned to her. “Or I would never have left her alone.”

  “Thank heavens Nathan came along.”

  “Yes.”

  Joseph turned as someone came into the room behind them. It was his mother, a tiny woman in a long dress. She had a dish towel and was drying her hands. Joseph immediately stepped aside and brought her forward. “Mother, this is Nathan Steed, the one who helped Emma in the village today.”

  The blue eyes immediately lighted with warmth. “Oh, yes. I remember. We met once before in the village.”

  “Hello, again, Mrs. Smith.”

  “We are so grateful to you for what you did today for Emma.” There were sudden tears in her eyes. “Joseph told me what you said to the crowd as he and Emma walked away.”

  This gratitude business was getting out of hand and Nathan felt his face getting hot. He started to brush it aside, but Joseph clapped one hand on his shoulder. “It was wonderful. We are in your debt.”

  Emma, sensing his embarrassment, gestured to the sofa. “Would you like to sit down, Nathan?”

  “No, thank you, I can only stay a few minutes. I…I just wanted to talk to Joseph for a moment.”

  “Nonsense,” Joseph’s mother said quickly, patting his arm. “I have some warm apple pie in the kitchen. Emma, you go fetch Father Smith and the other children. They’ll be disappointed if they don’t get a chance to meet Nathan. I’ll get the pie on.”

  “Really, Mrs. Smith,” Nathan protested, “I’ve got to be getting back.”

  Joseph laughed as his mother gently pushed Nathan toward the sofa. “You may as well give in. No one refuses Mother’s apple pie.”

  To the west of the Smith home, across Stafford Road, a small creek ran through the farm. Joseph jumped across it easily, with Nathan following, then walked through the remains of a cornfield, his feet crunching pleasantly on the short stalks left in the ground. Nathan followed at his side, his face pensive. Neither man spoke. Nathan was trying to collect his thoughts, and Joseph seemed content to wait for him to take the lead.

  About a hundred yards west of the house there was a large stand of virgin forest. It was common practice in the area to leave such stands of trees as woodlots. In fact, in earlier times many house leases included a clause that forbade the tenants from cutting any firewood except that which they could get “by hook or by crook”—that is, by using a hooked stick like a shepherd’s crook to pull down dead or dying branches from the trees. Though the custom had largely passed away, every wise farmer kept a woodlot for lumber and firewood.

  For a moment Nathan thought Joseph was heading into the woodlot. The sun had gone down and dusk was rapidly approaching. Within the trees it was dark, almost foreboding. But Joseph stopped on a small grassy knoll just before the trees began. He nodded, as though approving of his choice of sites, and sat down. Nathan followed suit.

  A bird flitted overhead and landed in one of the nearby trees. In a moment the lovely song of “bob-o-lee, bob-o-link” floated down to them.

  Joseph looked up. “Looks like that one forgot to head south.”

  Nathan looked up, not able to find the dark shape in the treetop until it jumped to another branch.

  “Normally the bob-o-links start south in mid-July and early August. This one must be from Vermont.”

  Surprised, Nathan turned to look at Joseph. “Why Vermont?”

  He grinned. “Even the summers in Vermont are so cold he probably developed so many feathers he can’t tell it’s autumn now.”

  Nathan laughed.

  “And the winters up there. Whoo!”

  “I know. Remember, my family comes from Vermont too.”

  “Oh, that’s right, down Rutland way.”

  “Yes.”

  “That hardly counts. Why, the birds up in Windsor County used to fly south to Rutland to warm their tail feathers.”

  “Right,” Nathan chuckled. Windsor County was less than a hundred miles north of Rutland, but this straight-faced exaggeration was the New England way, and it brought a quick pang of homesickness to Nathan. There were some things he still missed about Vermont.

  “You tell that to my pa and see what he says. That’s one of the reasons we left Rutland.”

  “Us too,” Joseph said, sobering. “We had three successive crop failures. Remember the winters of 1815 and ‘16?”

  “Barely, but my mother still talks about them.”

  With one last lilting cry, the bob-o-link flew away and the woods fell silent. Joseph leaned back on his elbows and closed his eyes, letting the soft breeze play across his face.

  Nathan watched for a moment, then lay back himself, feeling the warmth of the apple pie and two glasses of milk in his stomach. “Joseph?”

  “Yes.”

  “I…” He hesitated, feeling suddenly foolish.

  “You can ask it, Nathan.”

  He turned his head, surprised at his perceptiveness. “I don’t want to pry.”

  Joseph turned his head. “After what you did today, Nathan, you can ask.”

  Encouraged, Nathan started, hesitantly, not wanting to offend. “This is probably none of my affair, and if it isn’t, just say so.”

  “I think it may be very much your affair. Go on.”

  He plunged in. “Well, every one keeps talking about you seeing angels and having a gold Bible. Today in town even Emma seemed to talk like there was something to all this.”

  Joseph sat up a little, and a slow smile stole across his face. “That wasn’t a question, Nathan.”

  “No,” he chuckled, “I guess it wasn’t.”

  “So just ask it.”

  Nathan took a breath, and pressed on. “All right, then. Is there any truth to all this? Do you have gold plates or a gold Bible?”

  “No.”

  For a moment Nathan stared at Joseph. That was it? A simple no? So all of the talk, all of the Will Murdock prattle, all the rumors and wild stories were just that? He felt a wave of relief wash over him.

  “But…,” Joseph added, watching Nathan closely.

  Nathan felt his heart drop. “But what?”

  “May I ask you a question first?”

  “Of course.”

  “Have you thought about what I told you before?”

  Now it was Nathan’s turn to sit back. He finally sighed, not able to be anything but totally honest with him. “Yes. A great deal.”

  “And?”

  “And…” He finally threw up his hands in frustration. “I don’t know. One part of me wants to believe it. I mean, I know you’re not lying, Joseph. But another part of me thinks, ‘This is absolutely incredible. God appearing to a fourteen-year-old?’ “ Instantly he flushed. “I’m sorry, Joseph, I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Sorry for what?” Joseph replied softly. “It couldn’t seem any more fantastic to you than it does to me. Do you know how many times I’ve asked myself the very question? Why did this happen to me? And the answer always comes up the same. I don’t know. I only know it did.”

  He turned, gazing into the darkness of the nearby forest. “It was right over there, you know.”

  “What?”

  “Where it happened. After I read the Bible and decided to pray, I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I had been in this stand of trees many times, cutting wood, looking for livestock.”

  Nathan watched him, watched the memory filling his eyes. Finally, he spoke softly, “Mother believes you.”

  Joseph turned around very slowly, one eyebrow coming up. “She does?”

  “Yes.” Nathan told him quic
kly about her own experience in seeking which church to join and how his story had touched her. “She prayed about it for almost a month. Then she said she knew.”

  Joseph looked away, but not before Nathan had caught a sudden glint in his eyes. “You don’t know what that means to me, Nathan,” he said, his voice husky. “Will you tell her that for me?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a long moment of silence, then finally Joseph turned back to him. “Now, about these gold plates.”

  Nathan looked up quickly. “But you said there weren’t any.”

  “No, I said I don’t have them. And I don’t.” His eyes lifted to meet Nathan’s. “Not yet.”

  “Not yet?” Nathan cried, going up to his knees to face him, the dismay making his voice crack a little.

  “Once again, Nathan, I’d like to tell you the whole story. Then you can ask questions. Is that fair?”

  Nathan sat back slowly. “Fair enough.”

  Now Joseph sat fully up, clasping his knees and putting his head down on his arms. “About three years passed after the vision of 1820. Nothing else had happened. I mean, I went about life as usual. I came in for a lot of ridicule and persecution because of my telling people.” He shook his head slowly. “That scene in town today has been repeated many times. But other than that, it was pretty much a normal life for a teenaged boy.

  “It was September, 1823. I had reflected a great deal about my experience and wondered why nothing else had happened. The Lord had told me that the fulness of the gospel would at some future time be made known unto me, then three years of silence followed.

  “I began to feel it was my own sins and weaknesses that had caused this period of silence.” There was a ghost of a smile, wistful, almost sad. “Not that I was guilty of any great sins. That is not my nature. But I often acted foolishly. I was guilty of too much levity.” He grinned more openly now. “You know my nature, Nathan. I love to have a good time.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Of course not. But remember, I had been called of God, and such frivolity seemed out of character with the calling I had received. But anyway, one night I took myself to prayer and supplication to the Lord. I asked him to forgive my follies and imperfections. I also asked to know my standing with him.”

  He fell silent, smoothing the grass with his fingertips. The silence stretched on and Nathan was tempted to prompt him, but he waited, sensing that Joseph was gathering his thoughts. Finally, he began speaking, slowly and distinctly.

  “While I was thus in prayer—this was in my bedroom in the cabin where we lived before we moved here, just up the road.”

  “Yes, I noticed it as I passed it tonight.”

  “Yes. That’s where Hyrum and Jerusha live, now we have moved into the big house. Anyway, while I was praying, I suddenly noticed the room was getting light. The light grew brighter and brighter until the bedroom was brighter than at noonday. And there, standing in the air at my bedside, was a personage.”

  Nathan felt a familiar prickle run along the back of his neck. Was there nothing normal that happened to Joseph when he prayed? Again a part of him reeled at what he was hearing, but also once again Nathan felt his heart burning as Joseph spoke. It was like every word was piercing the flesh and penetrating his very soul. “Was it God?” he finally ventured.

  Joseph shook his head.

  “Then what was it? What did it look like?”

  “Not it,” Joseph smiled. “Him.”

  “It was a man?”

  “Yes. He had on a robe of the most exquisite whiteness, whiter than anything I had ever seen on this earth. The robe came down his arms to a little above the wrist, leaving his hands uncovered. It also came down to a little way above his ankles. He wore no shoes or sandals. His head was also uncovered.”

  Nathan was staring at Joseph, transfixed at the verbal imagery he was creating.

  “Not only was his robe of this incredible whiteness, but his very person was glorious beyond any description. His countenance was like lightning. That’s the only thing which comes close to describing it. This was what made the whole room brighter than daylight.”

  “What did you do?”

  Joseph laughed softly. “To be honest, at first I was frightened. I mean, suddenly here is this glorious being by my bedside, so brilliant he fills the whole room with light. But the fear quickly left me. He called me by name. He told me that his name was Moroni, and—”

  “More-ohn-eye?” Nathan repeated the name slowly.

  “Yes, that was his name. Moroni. He said he was a messenger sent from the presence of God.” Joseph shook his head slightly. “In light of what happened today, this next part should interest you, Nathan. Would you like to guess what the first thing he said was?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He said God had a work for me and that because of that work my name would be known for good and evil, or rather that people would speak both good and evil of me throughout the world.”

  Nathan digested that, thinking of the catcalls earlier that day.

  Joseph had stopped and was peering into Nathan’s eyes. In the near darkness the blue seemed to be almost black and Nathan could not read their expression. “He then told me…” Joseph took a breath and let it out in a burst, as though he were still a little dazed himself. “He told me there was a book, written on gold plates, deposited in a nearby hill.”

  Nathan had shot forward. “The gold Bible!”

  Joseph shook his head. “That’s what everyone is calling it, but all he said was that it was a record written on gold plates. He said it was a record of the people who lived on this continent before our time and told how they had come to be here.”

  Nathan was reeling. “You mean this is a record of the Indians?”

  “The forefathers of the Indians,” Joseph corrected. “Or at least part of them. He also said the Savior had visited these people and the book contained the fulness of his gospel.

  “After that he began to quote some scriptures from the Bible, prophecies from Isaiah and other Old Testament prophets about the last days. When he was finished, he spoke again of the plates, telling me the time had not yet come for me to have them, but when I did get them, I was to show them to no one except those to whom I would be instructed to show them, or I would be destroyed. As he was speaking, a vision was opened to me and I saw the place where the plates were buried. It is not far from here, and the vision was so clear and distinct, I knew I would have no trouble finding it again.

  “When he finished, the light in the room began to gather about him, as though it were collecting itself right into his person. Then, it was almost like there was a conduit which opened up into heaven. He ascended up that passageway, growing more and more distant, until he disappeared.”

  Full night had fallen now, and the sound of crickets and frogs rose like a soft chorus behind them. A mosquito buzzed near Nathan’s ear and he brushed at it without thinking, his mind racing. “So there really are gold plates?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do they look like, Joseph? How big are they?”

  “You said you would let me finish before you asked questions.”

  Chagrined, Nathan sat back. “I thought you were finished.”

  Joseph chuckled. “So did I that night. You can imagine my astonishment. I lay there on my bed marveling greatly at what had happened, when suddenly once again my room began to fill with light.”

  “Another angel?”

  “No. It was Moroni again. He commenced speaking and repeated everything he had said the first time, without any variation. Then he told me of great judgments that were to come upon the earth in this generation. Having done that he ascended once again to heaven as he had done before.

  “By this time, so deep were the impressions his visits had made upon my mind, any thought of sleep had fled. But imagine my surprise when once again my room began to fill with light. For the third time he stood at my bedside. Once again he repeated all he had said be
fore. Then he warned me that Satan would seek to tempt me to use the plates for personal gain.”

  Joseph shook his head in the darkness. “As you know, my family has gone through some hard times financially. The angel seemed to know about that, but said I was to have no other purpose in getting the plates than to glorify God and to build his kingdom, otherwise I could not have them.”

  He exhaled slowly, feeling the weariness of that night. “When he ascended the third time, I immediately heard the cock crowing and realized his three visits had taken all of the night.”

  “Where were the plates hidden?” Nathan burst out, the questions tumbling in his mind.

  Joseph held up his hand, smiling at him in the darkness.

  “You mean you’re still not finished?”

  “No. Because Moroni was not finished.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “That morning I went out as usual to work with my father and brothers. We were in the midst of the harvest. But I was so exhausted with all that had happened and from being awake all night, my father noticed something was wrong. He finally sent me back to the house to rest, but as I crossed the fence I lost all strength. I must have fainted. I was unconscious for a time. The first thing I remember was a voice calling me by name again. When I opened my eyes, there was Moroni standing above me.”

  “A fourth time?” Nathan breathed.

  “Yes. Once again he repeated everything he had told me.” Joseph stopped, and gave a short laugh. “Now do you understand why I can remember everything so clearly?”

  “I guess so. Four times!”

  “Yes. When he was finished, he told me to return to the field and tell my father all that had happened, then I was to go to the hill where the plates were buried.”

  That caught Nathan by surprise. “What did your father say?”

  “My father is a very practical man,” Joseph said softly. “I am pleased to say he believed everything I told him. In fact, my family has always stood by me in this.” He shrugged. “They at least have believed me. Anyway, Father simply told me to do exactly as the angel had commanded me to do. So I left the field and went immediately to the hill where the plates were buried. Having seen it the night before in vision, I knew exactly where it was. It’s within walking distance of our farm. When I got there, I climbed to a spot near the top of the hill. There I found a stone of considerable size, half-buried in the ground. From above, it looked like a huge boulder, but I dug around it and found the bottom of it was flat. I got a large stick, and using it for a lever, pried the stone up.”