Watching from a Distance

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Because President Woodruff was in hiding from the Federal Government for the Church’s belief in polygamy, what did he watch from a distance?

a.                  His wife’s funeral

b.                  General Conference

c.                   His daughter’s marriage

d.                  Pioneer day celebrations

Yesterday’s answer:

B   Because of his lack of education

From the life of Joseph Smith Jr.:   A seventeen-year-old boy stood in the midst of his family relating an incredible story. His name was the same as a prophet of old whose brothers rejected him for being favored of the Lord—they stole his coat, beat him, cast him into a pit, and then sold him as a slave into Egypt. The modern-day Joseph searched the eyes of his brothers, sisters, and parents. His brother William wrote: “He arose and told us how the angel appeared to him; what he had told him. . . .  He continued talking to us [for] sometime. The whole family were melted to tears, and believed all he said.”

The angel referred to was the angel Moroni, who had appeared to young Joseph five times on 21 and 22 September 1823. Part of the reason his family knew he was telling the truth was that he was not educated or sophisticated enough to fabricate such a tale. William wrote: “Knowing that he was very young, that he had not enjoyed the advantages of a common education; and knowing too, his whole character and disposition, [we] were convinced that he was totally incapable of arising before his aged parents, his brothers and sisters, and so solemnly giving utterance to anything but the truth.”

One of the reasons the Smith family was prepared to believe that Joseph’s spiritual manifestations were real was because his father had also seen visions: “Joseph Smith, Sr., had seven inspirational dreams over a span of years, all exhibiting a desire for belief, healing, and direction, all showing dissatisfaction with religion as it existed.”

Flake, Lawrence R., Prophets and Apostles of the Last Dispensation, (Provo, Utah: Religious Study Center, Brigham Young University, 2001), 11-12.