“The Bible tells us,” Joseph went on, his voice sounding a little hoarse now, “that we shall be heirs of God and ‘joint-heirs’ with Jesus Christ. What does that mean? It means that we inherit the same power, the same glory, and the same exaltation as the Savior did, that we can ascend the throne of eternal power, the same as those who have gone before. What did Jesus do? ‘Why, I do the things I saw my Father do when worlds came rolling into existence. My Father worked out his kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same. And when I get my kingdom, I shall present it to my Father, so that he may obtain kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt him in glory. He will then take a higher exaltation, and I will take his place, and thereby become exalted myself.’
“Can you not see it, my brothers and sisters? It is plain beyond disputation. When you climb up a ladder, you must begin at the bottom and ascend step by step, until you arrive at the top. So it is with the principles of the gospel. You must begin with the first and go on until you learn all the principles of exaltation. But it will be a great while after you have passed through the veil before you will have learned them. It is not all to be comprehended in this world. It will be a great work to learn our salvation and exaltation even beyond the grave.”
Joshua stood once again, winning himself irritated glances from those around him and a surprised look from Caroline. He ignored both, making his way slowly through the people, careful not to step on anyone. Once clear, he walked quietly back toward his house.
He had come to watch Joseph dethroned, he thought with some sense of irony. Instead he had just witnessed him entrench his position as leader of the Church more powerfully than ever before. Now Joshua knew there was only one thing to do. It would take him a month or two to finish up the sale of his business here in Nauvoo. Then he and his family would leave Warsaw. And now he wasn’t so sure that St. Louis was the answer anymore. They would leave and go somewhere far away. Maybe eventually that would make the difference. And yet, even as he formulated those thoughts, he knew it was foolish thinking. He had seen Caroline’s face. He had watched Will and Olivia. They would follow Joshua wherever he said, he knew that now. But what of it? Their hearts were here. Their confidence was fixed
on the man speaking of how to achieve celestial glory. Joshua understood now that he was never going to turn their hearts away from that. Never! And it left him filled with a great emptiness and sense of loss.
Though nothing was declared openly or brought before the full congregation of the Saints, the April 1844 general conference proved to be a pivotal moment in the ever-widening split between Joseph and his enemies. The opposition group was openly recruiting members of the Church to join them, but Joseph had hard evidence of their secret conspiracies now and moved quickly against them. The break was swift, inevitable, and final.
On the eighteenth of April, just a little over a week following the conference, Robert D. Foster, William and Wilson Law, and William’s wife, Jane, were excommunicated from the Church for unchristian-like conduct. Though not unexpected, it nevertheless came as a tremendous shock to the Church. William Law had been Second Counselor in the First Presidency. Wilson Law was a major general in the Nauvoo Legion.
Two days later, Emma Smith, who was now about three months pregnant with another child, took a riverboat south to St. Louis to purchase goods for the store and for the Mansion House. Immediately upon hearing that, some of Joseph’s enemies spread the rumor that Emma was extremely bitter over the whole issue of plural marriage and was leaving Joseph for good. This was the real reason for her departure, they said. Unfortunately for the rumormongers, five days later she was back in Nauvoo and went right back to the Mansion House.
On April twenty-sixth, Foster and his brother came to the mayor’s office and threatened Joseph with a pistol. They were arrested, disarmed, and fined one hundred dollars each. Now the spirit of rebellion was out in the open and growing uglier almost daily. That next Sunday evening, while the Saints gathered for a prayer meeting for the sick, the apostates gathered at the home of Wilson Law. After several affidavits attesting to Joseph’s “fallen” state were read, it was proposed that a new, reformed church be created. The proposal was greeted with enthusiasm, and immediately steps were undertaken to formalize it. William Law would be the new president; Austin Cowles and Wilson Law would be his counselors. Robert Foster and Francis Higbee and others were nominated to be apostles in a new “quorum of the twelve.”
During all this trouble, Joseph did not abandon his candidacy for president of the United States. His platform statement had been mailed to about two hundred leaders throughout the country in an attempt to build a base of support for his candidacy. It was decided that elders would be sent on missions throughout the United States to promote his run for the presidency. By mid-May, Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball and all the rest of the Twelve, except for John Taylor and Willard Richards, had left Nauvoo to go east.
As summer came, the Saints were alienated from virtually everyone else in Illinois. Many communities were jealous of Nauvoo’s explosive success; others resented the city’s liberal charter and the fact that the state legislature would not grant them similar license. With the Nauvoo Legion numbering five thousand strong, there was growing fear of the Mormons’ power. Criticism continued to grow that the municipal court system was more protective of Joseph than it was of the law. And the distaste for the unique Mormon doctrines—particularly the growing knowledge of plural marriage—only deepened the alienation and isolation.
But in spite of all that, the danger lay elsewhere. When he had addressed the newly formed police department back in December of 1843, Joseph Smith said: “All the enemies upon the face of the earth may roar and exert all their power to bring about my death, but they can accomplish nothing, unless some who are among us and enjoy our society join with our enemies.” As June 1844 began, the stage was set to prove how prophetic Joseph’s statement would be.
When Foster and the Laws formed their new church, two actions were decided on. The first would prove to be a minor annoyance. The second would have far greater consequences. First, a committee was appointed to visit different families in the city to see who would join the new church. They had some limited success, but nothing more. Second, the group also resolved to begin publishing their own newspaper to provide a countervoice to the papers published by the Church. Immediately they sent off for a press. There had to be a suitable name, they reasoned. This newspaper would be the means of bringing all of Joseph’s nefarious acts to the attention of the world. A name was proposed and eagerly accepted.
They would call it the Nauvoo Expositor.
Chapter Notes
Joseph’s comments about the rainbow being a sign related to the second coming of Christ were given on 10 March 1844 and were recorded by several different men (see Joseph Smith, The Words of Joseph Smith, comp. and ed. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook [Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1980], pp. 332, 334, 335, 336; also found in Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1938], pp. 305, 340–41). On 6 April, shortly after the afternoon session of conference was dismissed because of imminent rain, a brilliant double rainbow appeared in the heavens (see HC 6:297).
What has come to be known as the King Follett Discourse—which some have thought to be one of the most important doctrinal discourses ever given, and which was in the eyes of the Saints the consummate proof that Joseph was not a fallen prophet—was delivered on the afternoon of 7 April 1844, the second day of the conference (see HC 6:302–17; also in Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 342–62). Less than half of the total sermon is cited here.
The doctrine that God is an exalted man and that man may someday become a god himself was first taught by Joseph Smith in the King Follett Discourse. Though the doctrine has been widely criticized by some other churches, it is based solidly on biblical concepts as well as on latter-day revelation. Paul taught tha
t God is the Father of our spirits (see Hebrews 12:9). This is why we refer to him as our Heavenly Father (see Matthew 6:8–9).
It is part of Latter-day Saint theology that this is a literal fatherhood and not just symbolic terminology. Elder Boyd K. Packer, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, suggested why this concept of fatherhood is pivotal to the idea that we may someday become gods. “Since every living thing follows the pattern of its parentage, are we to suppose that God had some other strange pattern in mind for His offspring? Surely we, His children, are not, in the language of science, a different species than He is? What is in error, then, when we use the term Godhood to describe the ultimate destiny of mankind? We may now be young in our progression—juvenile, even infantile, compared with Him. Nevertheless, in the eternities to come, if we are worthy, we may be like unto Him, enter His presence, . . . and receive a ‘fulness.’ ” (In Conference Report, October 1984, p. 83.)
Other biblical references support this concept. For example, we are commanded to be perfect, just as our Father in Heaven is perfect (see Matthew 5:48). Paul taught that the faithful can become “joint-heirs with Christ” (see Romans 8:14–18). A joint-heir is one who inherits the same rewards as another heir. Since Christ was given all that his Father has (see John 16:15), to be joint-heirs with Christ means that we may inherit all that the Father has also. Paul confirmed this when he said that through Christ, God would “freely give us all things” (Romans 8:32). And John the Revelator taught that those that “overcometh shall inherit all things” (Revelation 21:7). In another place, John wrote: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2; emphasis added).
This doctrine is taught clearly enough in the New Testament that C. S. Lewis, that wonderful Christian theologian and writer (and not a Latter-day Saint!), wrote: “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. . . . There are no ordinary people.” (The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed. [New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1980], pp. 18, 19; emphasis added.)
This does not mean that Latter-day Saints believe they will someday supplant God the Father or ever take his place as the Supreme God of the Universe. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost will ever, eternities without end, be held in the utmost reverence and worshipped as God. But Latter-day Saints do solemnly affirm, as they believe God himself stated in a revelation given to Joseph Smith, that if certain conditions are met, through the glorious grace of Christ, “then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue. . . . Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.” (D&C 132:20.)
President Spencer W. Kimball, twelfth President of the Church, taught: “Man can transform himself and he must. Man has in himself the seeds of godhood, which can germinate and grow and develop. As the acorn becomes the oak, the mortal man becomes a god. It is within his power to lift himself by his very bootstraps from the plane on which he finds himself to the plane on which he should be. It may be a long, hard lift with many obstacles, but it is a real possibility.” (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982], p. 28.)
For an excellent summary of the time period between April and June 1844, see CHFT, pp. 269–71. The quote from Joseph Smith about enemies within the Church is found in HC 6:152.
Chapter 39
Nathan burst into his father’s house without knocking. He stopped just inside, looking around. “Anybody here?”
“I’m in the kitchen.”
He strode down the hall and found Mary Ann at the kitchen table writing a letter to Melissa and Carl. “Where’s Father?” he blurted.
“He just left to go find Joseph.” Her eyes dropped to the paper in his hand. “The Expositor?” she asked grimly.
“Yes. Has Father seen it?”
“That’s why he was going to find Joseph. He thinks there’ll be a call for the city council to meet.”
“At the very least,” Nathan cried, shaking the paper at her. “This is outrageous! Did he read any of it to you?”
“No, Brother Harris of the city council came by. He had a copy. Said they needed to talk to Joseph immediately.”
Nathan came over and sat down in a chair, positively fuming. He spread the paper out on the table. “Listen to this. They say—” He turned the paper to the last page and scanned quickly. “ ‘A part of its columns will be devoted to a few primary objects, which the Publishers deem of vital importance to the public welfare. Their particular locality gives them a knowledge of the many gross abuses exercised under the pretended authorities of the Nauvoo City Charter—’ ” He slammed his fist down against the table. “They’re calling for the unconditional repeal of the Nauvoo Charter.”
Mary Ann nodded. “They put all that in their original prospectus published about a month ago. The city council has been waiting to see if they would really carry through with it.”
He snatched the paper up again and turned it back to the front page. “Well, listen to this. Talk about slander! ‘We are earnestly seeking to explode the vicious principles of Joseph Smith, and those who practice the same abominations and whoredoms.’ ” He turned the page. “Here’s more. ‘It is a notorious fact, that many females in foreign climes, and in countries to us unknown, even in the most distant regions of the Eastern hemisphere, have been induced, by the sound of the gospel, to forsake friends, and embark upon a voyage across waters that lie stretched over the greater portion of the globe.’ It then goes on to say that once they arrive, these women are taken to some secret place down by the river or to some room with a No Admittance sign. There, expecting to be given a blessing by Joseph, they are instead forced to submit to him and become his spiritual wives. If they don’t, then Joseph pronounces them damned for all eternity.”
Mary Ann’s eyes were wide. “How can they say things like that? Those are outright lies.”
“The whole paper is full of lies!” He was so angry he couldn’t sit still. He stood and began pacing. Then he remembered something else and grabbed the paper again. “Look! Read this right here. See if this describes how you or Lydia or Rebecca would describe your life here in Nauvoo.” He stabbed his finger down to show her the place.
Mary Ann bent over and began to read. “ ‘It is difficult—perhaps impossible—to describe the wretchedness of females in this place, without wounding the feelings of the benevolent, or shocking the delicacy of the refined; but the truth shall come to the world.’ ” She looked up. It wasn’t very often that Mary Ann Steed exhibited anger, but now she had a deep anger in her eyes. “That is horrible!”
“Yes, it is. But how many of our enemies out there will believe it is a lie? None. This is what they want to hear. And these men are giving it to them.”
He picked up the paper and jammed it under his arm. “I’m sorry, Mother. I didn’t mean to come in and upset you. But this has got me so angry. This has got to be stopped, Mother. It has to be stopped.”
For two full days—Saturday the eighth, and again on Monday the tenth—the city council met in long sessions to discuss what should be done about the Expositor. The newspaper had thrown the whole city into an uproar and now the council had to determine what to do. The list of publishers came right out of the group of conspirators—William and Wilson Law, Robert and Charles Foster, Francis and Chauncey Higbee, and Charles Ivins.
For two solid days, Benjamin sat as a member of the council and listened to sworn testimony about the character of the men behind the newspaper. He studied the ordinances of the city and was convinced that legally they had a right to take action against something which so flagrantly threatened the peace of their city. He listened
as they read from Blackstone, the esteemed English jurist, and found a basis in the law for moving forward. He listened to all of that, and at the same time knew in his heart that this was going to have grave consequences. The enemies of the Church would howl over this one, and so they had to be very wise in how they proceeded.
He knew all of that, but the thing which finally helped Benjamin make up his mind was the testimony of Phineas Richards, another member of the city council. “Brethren,” he said, “some of you know that my son was killed at Haun’s Mill. I have not forgotten what transpired there. I have not forgotten that my son’s body was dumped into a well without a winding-sheet, shroud, or coffin. Now the same spirit is raging in this place. I, for one, cannot sit still while that happens. I am ready to stand by our mayor to the last in whatever he chooses to do. Whatever we do, brethren, the quicker this thing is stopped, the better.”
Thus it was that on the afternoon of June tenth, Joseph Smith, as mayor of Nauvoo, following the directive of the city council, issued the following order:
State of Illinois,
City of Nauvoo
Pillar of Light Page 328