A (47:32)
Well, not throughout the rest of the 19th century, because throughout the rest of the 19th century. So all throughout Joseph Smith's life, the federal government was a disappointment to him because he kept appealing and appealing and appealing for them to intervene and to help the Mormons in their. The persecution that was being heaped upon them at a local and a state level. Right. Missouri confiscated all the Mormons land, you know, not the federal government. Right, but the federal government refused to do anything about it. Well, as the Saints are leaving Nauvoo, there's going to be a transition to where the Saints believe that the federal government is now not just a really weak and, you know, feckless operator, but they're actually actively persecuting them. And you see this with the arguments for, and then the eventual passages of anti Mormon laws from the federal government. And you know, I mean, in, in the 1850s, Congress is going to debate purchasing tens of thousands of copies of the Book of Mormon and distributing them all over the country. With the idea being as long as anyone, you know, the only reason anyone becomes a Mormon is they've never really read this. If they read this, then they wouldn't become a Mormon. I can only imagine Brigham Young saying like, no, don't do that. Please don't buy tens of thousands of copies and give them to people. I mean, that's being debated in our Congress. Congress is continually debating laws. It's eventually going to. Going to. It's going to focus on polygamy and plural marriage, because that's just the easiest thing to focus on. But even things like the Homestead act are by its sponsors, designed to destroy Mormons by flooding out the Mormons in the west with proper Christian civilization. So all throughout the 19th century, it's just increasing antagonism with the federal government. And it's not until after the first Manifesto and after Utah becomes a state that those tensions are going to lessen somewhat. There's still a lot of animosity there. But like with most immigrant groups, even though I know the latter Day Saints are per se, an immigrant group, but they're this minority group, this ethnic group. There's some assimilation that occurs over time. In the earliest days of the Irish immigration, Right. There wasn't a whole lot of love for the United States among these Irish men and women that were being persecuted so badly in the United States. Well, now you find a whole bunch of people with the name o' Maui who are waving an American flag around. Right. I mean, so assimilation is something that occurs just by the fact of living in a country over the course of time. So that's part of it. Then. The other part of it is, as the 20th century goes on, not only do you have this trajectory of becoming more American, eventually the greatest enemy of the United States and the greatest enemy of the Church become the same thing. And that's with international communism. Right. Not only do the first and Second World War more fully integrate Latter Day Saints into the country because everyone's fighting it, but in the Cold War, everywhere that becomes a communist nation is a place that the Latter Day Saints can no longer proselyte. Communism is godless, Communism is atheist, and communism stopping proselyting. And who's the great bulwark against communism? Well, the United States. And so you can see how much more easily that's going to merge, because the greatest threat to the spreading of the gospel is international communism. That's how they see it. And the greatest threat to international communism is the United States. And so they really become symbolic to where being a patriotic Latter Day Saint is, is, is. They're one and the same thing. If I'm a good Latter Day Saint, of course I'm pro American because America's standing against international Communism. We could talk a lot more about that. But let me go back to our discussion of John Taylor's account. So he talks about this conversation with Willard Richards. Then he's going to talk about something that probably people know a lot less about, and that is, you might have heard that Joseph had a gun in Carthage jail. And so let's talk a little bit about how he had that gun. Now, sometimes people will say, oh, yeah, it's a total secret. Yeah, the church is hiding the fact that he had a gun in Carthage jail. Yes, we're hiding it in the history of the church. You can read the history of the church. It's there. I mean, yes, it's not in, you know, a lesson. It's not in, like, your seat, you know, it's not in your sunbeam. Lesson on the martyrdom. Only because you're Worried the little kids will try to reenact it. But it is certainly well known that Joseph had a gun in Carthage jail. Elder Cyrus. This is back to John Taylor. Elder Cyrus Wheelock came in to see us and as he was leaving he drew a small pistol, a six shooter from his pocket. Remarking at that time, would any of you like to have this? Brother Joseph immediately replied, yes, give it to me. He took the pistol and he put it in his pantaloon pocket. The pistol was a six shooting revolver. Valance Patney talks all about. In fact John Taylor's like, it's actually my gun. I, I'd given it to Cyrus Wheelock for him to protect himself. And here comes Cyrus. Does anyone want this gun? John, that's my gun. But Joseph Smith now has it anyway. He goes on to talk about how over the course of the remainder of the day various different people go out and they're not allowed to return back. So Cyrus Willock is one of those people. He was there with him. He leaves and he's not allowed to come back. That morning of June 27th the governor who has pledged the protection of Joseph. Oh, I'll protect you. He decides that the real threat is the Nauvoo legion in Nauvoo. So he leaves Carthage, he takes some of his troops with him and he leaves and apparently disbands some of the other militia around him. And so now there's a really ominous feeling inside of the jail. The governor who was supposedly there to protect them is, is gone. And now what now? Now who's going to protect us? The report of the governor, this is John Taylor again having gone to Nau without taking the prisoners along with him again. Great point, John Taylor. If you need to go to Nauvoo so badly, why don't you take Joseph with you in tow and put him in a cage as you're going so that he's with you and protect you. No, you leave him in Carthage. Which I think goes to show just how poorly Thomas Ford judged the situation. He assumed that the Latter Day Saints were exaggerating about every threat that was facing them. And you know, he assumed incorrectly. The report of the governor having gone to Nauvoo without taking the prisoners with him caused very unpleasant feelings as we were apprised that we were now under the tender mercies of the Carthage Greys, the local militia there in Carthage, a company that was strictly mobocratic and whom we knew to be our most deadly enemies. And their captain, Esquire Smith was a most unprincipled villain. Besides this, all the mob forces comprising the governor's troops were dismissed, with the exception of one or two companies which the governor took with him to Nauvoo. The greater part of the mob was liberated, and the remainder was now our guard. We looked upon it not only as a breach of faith on the part of the governor, but also as an indication of his desire to. To insult us, if nothing more, by leaving us in the proximity of such men. Colonel Marcum then went out, and he was also prevented from returning. He was very angry at this, but the mob paid no attention to him. They drove him out of town at the point of a bayonet and threatened to shoot him if he returned. He went, I'm informed, to Nauvoo for the purpose of raising a company of men for our protection. Brother Folmer went to Nauvoo after witnesses. It's my opinion that Brother Willock did also. Sometime after dinner, we sent for some wine. Now, remember, this is John Taylor writing about this in 1854, so ten years after the martyrdom. Already, though, in Utah, there had been attempts. And I'm sure we'll do a podcast at some point in the future on the Word of Wisdom, and we'll talk about that. But for Latter Day Saints today, the Word of Wisdom is an abstinence document. It's a document in which you don't, you know, you don't smoke at all, you don't drink at all, you don't drink coffee at all. And when it was first received, it was, as the scripture says, neither by commandment nor by constraint. And the general idea, at least of Latter Day Saints at the time was, it's wrong to get drunk, but it's not wrong to occasionally drink. It's wrong to drink coffee all day long, but it's not wrong to drink coffee at all, right? And again, there's a lot of nuances. We could talk about that. But this is sometimes used by antagonists of our faith who will say, oh, you know, Joseph Smith was drunk in garbage jail, right? Well, first of all, right, six men aren't getting drunk on one bottle of wine. You know, it take, you know, Willard Richards is a large guy, too. I mean, he probably needs a couple bottle of wine. But the, the reality is people don't know that that's the case. And so already in Utah, as people told the story of the martyrdom, they did what Mormons love to do, and that is try to make the past equal your present by inventing a story, right? So Latter Day Saints today do that all the time? Well, we're not allowed to drink at all. Oh, yeah. So that means that Joseph Smith only drank grape juice. Well, no, today we're not allowed to drink at all. That doesn't mean. That's what happened in the past. And so apparently what people were saying in Utah was, oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, they had wine in Carthage, but it was like, because they had the sacrament there, that's why. Because In Utah in 1854, it was still fine to use alcoholic wine in the sacrament. They used wine in the sacrament all the way up until 1900 in the church. Right. So. So you can already see people attempting to justify as they're trying to live the word of wisdom more rigorously in Utah. Why was Joseph drinking in Carthage jail? Oh, because it was the sacrament. And you can tell how mad John Taylor is at this. He is angry that this is because. What are you suggesting? That if it wasn't the sacrament, that we were doing something wrong? Well, we weren't doing anything wrong. Right. That's the point he wants to make. So sometime after dinner, we sat for some wine. It's been reported by some, but this was taken as a sacrament. It was no such thing. Our spirits were generally dull and heavy and it was sent to revive us. In other words, they drank for the same reason that everyone drinks. We all drank of the wine and gave some of it to one or two of our prison guards. We all felt unusually dull and languid, with remarkable depression of spirits. In consequence of those feelings, I sang the following song that had lately been introduced to Nauvoo entitled A Poor Wayfaring man of Grief. And then he lists off all the verses. You know, there's the seven verses of it. The part, I think, that was so prescient was the portion that talked about in prison. I saw him next condemned to meet a traitor's doom at morn the tide of wine tongues I stemmed and honored him mid shame and scorn My friendship's utmost zeal to try. He asked if I for him would die. The flesh was weak, my blood ran chill but the free spirit cried, I will. These men were actually facing this, you know, as this. The clouds are kind of gathering blackness as John Taylor describes as. You know, the tune it is. It's a melancholy tune. It is not a. You know, it's not sung with vigor as some hymns are. John Taylor says the song is pathetic and the tune quite plaintive. And it was very much in accordance with our feelings at the time. For our spirits were all depressed and dull and gloomy and surcharged with indefinite, ominous forebodings. After a lapse of some time, Brother Hyrum requested me to sing that song again. I replied, brother Hyrum, I do not feel like singing. And he remarked, oh, never mind. Commence singing and you'll get the spirit of it. At his request, I sang the song again. Soon afterwards I was sitting at the front of the windows of the jail when I saw a number of men with painted faces coming around the corner of the jail and heading towards the stairs. The other brethren had seen the same thing. For as I went to the door, I found Brother Hyrum Smith and Dr. Richards already leaning against it. They both pressed against the door with their shoulders to prevent it from being open, as the lock and latch were completely useless. While in this position, the mob who had come up the stairs and strove to open the door open probably thought that it was locked and fired a ball through the keyhole. At this, Dr. Richards and Hiram, Brother Hyrum leapt back from the door with their faces towards it. Almost instantly another ball passed through the panel of the door and struck Brother Hyrum on the left side of the nose, entering his face and head simultaneously. The same instant, another ball from outside enter his back, passing through his body and striking his watch. Immediately when the ball struck him, he fell flat on his back, crying as he fell. I am a dead man. He never moved. Afterwards, I shall never forget the feeling of deep sympathy and regard manifested in the countenance of Brother Joseph as he drew nigh to Hyrum and leaning over him, exclaimed, oh, my poor dear Brother Hyrum. He, however, instantly arose with a firm, quick step and and a determined expression of countenance approached the door and pulling the six shooter left by Brother Wheelock from his pocket, he opened the door slightly and snapped the pistol six times. Only three of the barrels, however, were discharged. As soon as he had discharged it, he stepped back and I immediately took his place beside the door whilst he occupied the one that I had done while he was shooting. Brother Richard this time had a naughty walking stick in his hands belonging to me, and stood next to Brother Joseph a little further from the door in an oblique direction, apparently to avoid the rake of fire from the door. The firing of Brother Joseph made our assailants pause for a moment. Very soon after, however, they pushed the door open distance, some distance open, and protruded and discharged their guns into the room. And I parried them off with my stick, giving another direction to the ball. So one of the great questions that you might ask about the martyrdom is how does anybody survive? Right. There's four men in this room. You can tell that the plan of the, of the mob is to break into the room and kill them. What's the easiest way to kill four people trapped in a room in a two story building? Go into the room and shoot them. That's the easiest way to do it and it should be pretty easy. The whole reason why they shoot through the lock of the door is they think the door's locked. It's not locked, it's just Willard Richards is pushed up against it. And so they try to open the door and the door opens in, it doesn't move at all. So they think they've got this door locked and so they try to shoot. They shoot through the lock to break the lock. The idea is shattering the lock. So now there's no bolt holding the door anymore. So if your plan is to get into the room and your plan is to get into the room so much that you shoot through the lock to do it, why don't they come into the room? Well, that's because as soon as they start shooting through the door, as soon as Hiram said, I don't know what these guys thought was going to happen in the moment this all, as Willard Richard said, it was two minutes in jail that all of this transpired. They might have thought maybe this is just another tarring and feathering. Maybe this is just another, you know, they're going to come beat us up. Maybe this is just another spit on us, attack us, you know, hit us with a rifle. But, but at that moment when that ball passes through that door and hits the assistant president of the church in the nose, Hyrum Smith, the patriarch of the church, and kills him, it is instantly clear to everyone in the room what the attention intention of that mob is. And Joseph goes to the door and blindly points the gun out, out the door and, and shoots. And because Joseph does that now again, antagonist will be like, oh, Joseph didn't go like a lamb to the slaughter. He, he had a gun, he shot the gun. So, so, so yeah, he, he wasn't lamb. It was a gun battle. The fact that Joseph had a gun in Carthage jail saves Willard Richards and John Taylor's life. Because as John Taylor expresses here, and he will express it multiple times, so Willard Richards, because of that, they never actually come into the room because while they are a bunch of murdering cowards who are more than willing to try to take someone to life. They aren't willing to risk their own life to do it. So instead of coming into the room, which was obviously the plan, they now know someone in there has a gun. Does someone else have a gun? Are they reloading the gun that they have? I'm not going to be the first one through that door. So instead of coming through the door, what do they do? They put their guns around the door jamb and they start blindly firing into the room, which is the reason why they can shoot so many times and hit almost nothing, because they're not aiming. They're just blindly firing with their guns around the door because they're afraid if they come out from behind the wall, they're going to be shot and they're not willing to get shot. So they. They stay out. You have both John Taylor and Lord Richards using their. Their canes and walking sticks to hit the rifles, which you can do. Again, very difficult to knock a gun away when the person's standing right in front of you. But if they're just blindly putting the gun around the door, it's pretty easy to hit their rifle butts up and down to try to give a different direction to the shots. As John Taylor talks about it was back to his account. It certainly was a terrible scene. Streams of fire as thick as my arm passed by me as these men fire. And unarmed as we were, it looked like certain death. I remember feeling as though my time had come, but I do not know when in any critical position I was any more calm, unruffled and energetic. It was certainly far from pleasant to be near the muzzles of those firearms as they belched forth their liquid flame and deadly balls. While I was engaged in parrying the guns, Brother Joseph said, that's right, Brother Taylor, parry them off as well as you can. Those were the last words I ever heard him speak on earth. Every moment the crowd at the door became more dense as they were unquestionably pushed upon by those in the rear. Ascending the stairs until the whole entrance of the door was literally crowded with muskets and rifles and the swearing, shouting and demonical expressions of those outside the door and on the stairs. And the firing of guns mingled with their horrid oaths and execrations made it look like pandemonium had been let loose and was indeed a fit representation of the horrid deed in which they were engaged. After parrying the guns for some time, which protruded thicker and further into the room, and seeing no hope of escape or protection there, as we were now Unarmed. It occurred to me we might have some friend outside and that there might be some chance of escape, but here there seemed to be none. I expected them at every moment to just rush into the room, and nothing but their extreme cowardice kept them out. He goes on to talk about how the window in the room was open because it was such a hot day. And he. He. The thought had come to him that he would maybe, even though they're on the second floor, I might break an arm, I might break a leg jumping out the window. But at least there's some chance of. There's at least some chance out there. And like you said, here there was none. The problem is the window in. In that cell is almost directly in that room. It's almost directly in front of where the door is. And so at trying to go for the window, you actually pass in front of the door. As he passes in front of the door trying to get to the window, he's going to be shot multiple times. And he talks about that in his account that as I reached the window and I was on the point of leaping out, I was struck from a ball by the door about midway through my thigh, which struck the bone and flattened out to the size of almost a quarter dollar, and then pass through the fleshy part to within about a half inch of the outside. So it gets almost shot all the way through his thigh. He falls on the windowsill and cries out, I'm shot. He then begins to feel himself falling out of the window with this wound. And then miraculously, instead of falling out, he falls back in, which he would later credit to the idea of a bullet striking his pocket watch and knocking him back into the room. Forensic analysis on that today and historical analysis suggests that in actuality, his pocket watch was. Was probably smashed when he hit the windowsill because he hit it so hard as he. As he fell. He says he dropped as soon as he was shot. And that really, it is some miraculous force that kind of pulls him back, back inside. So he talks about, you know, he falls on the ground and eventually feels like he can move again. As soon as I felt the power of motion return, I crawled under the bed, which was in the corner of the room, not far from the window where I received my wound. While on my way under the bed. I was wounded in three other places. One ball entered a little below the left knee and was never extracted. I want you to think about that for a minute. John Taylor is going to have some bitterness towards both the United States and certainly towards the people who murdered Joseph. And throughout the remainder of his life, he has a cane because he has a bullet in the back of his knee from Carthage jail. I mean, it was never extracted. At least by 1854, ten years later, it was not extracted. Another, under the forepart of my left arm, a little above the wrist and passed down the joint and lodged in the fleshy part of my hand. About midway into my hand, another struck the fleshy part of my left hip and tore away the flesh as large as my hand, dashing the mangled fragments of flesh and blood against the wall. It would seem that immediately after my attempt to leap from the window, Joseph also did the same thing, of which circumstance I have no knowledge, only from information. The first thing that I noticed was a cry went out that he had leapt from the window. A cessation of firing followed, and the mob rushed downstairs and Dr. Richards went to the window. Immediately afterwards, I saw the doctor going towards the jail door, as there was an iron door at the head of the stairs adjoining our door, which led to the cells for criminals. If you've been to Carthage jail, in the upper story of Carthage jail, there's a bedroom and there is also an actual jail cell with bars. Well, these men were being kept actually in the bedroom. It kind of shows you how little fear the jailer had from them. You know, here they are, you know, tried for treason and they're liable of being executed, but the jailer is, you know, doesn't care if they hang out with his family, essentially. So, I mean, it kind of gives you an idea of where he was at. But so John Taylor thinks that he, you know, maybe he's going to that cell to hide, you know, that they've. Obviously, they know they're in the bedroom, but the mob, as soon as they hear that Joseph is out of the window, they rush back down the stairs and. And. And so these men don't know what's going to happen yet. Well, of course they're going to go outside, you know, see what goes on with Joseph, and they're going to come back up. I said to him, so this is John Taylor speaking to Willard Richards. Stop, doctor. Take me along. He proceeded to the door and opened it and returned and dragged me to the small cell prepared for criminals. Brother Richards was very much troubled and exclaimed, oh, brother Taylor, is it possible that they have killed both brother Hyrum and Joseph? It cannot surely be. And yet I saw them shoot him. And elevating his hands two or three times, he exclaimed, o Lord, my God, spare Thy servants. He then said, brother Taylor, this is a terrible event. He dragged me further into the cell and taking an old, filthy mattress, he covered me with it and said, that may hide you, and you may yet live to tell the tale, but I expect that they will kill me in a few moments. While lying in this position, I suffered the most excruciating pain. Soon afterwards, Dr. Richards came to me and informed me that the mob had precipitously fled and at the same time confirming my worst fears that Joseph was assuredly dead. I felt a dull, lonely, sickening sensation at the news when I reflected that our noble chieftain, the prophet of the living God, had fallen, that I'd seen his brother in the cold embrace of death. It seemed as though there was an open void or vacuum in the great field of human existence to me, a dark and gloomy chasm in the kingdom, and that we were left alone. Oh, how lonely was that feeling. How cold and barren and desolate. In the midst of difficulties, Joseph always was the first in motion in critical position. His counsel was always sought as our prophet Joseph approached our God and obtained for us his will. But now our prophet, our counselor, our general, our leader, was gone. And amid the fiery ordeal that we then had to pass through, we were left alone, without his aid as our future guide for things spiritual or temporal, and for all things pertaining to this world or the next, he had spoken for the last time on earth. These reflections and thousand others flashed upon my mind. I thought, why must the good perish and the virtuous be destroyed? Why must God's nobility, the salt of the earth, the most exalted of the human family, the most perfect types of all excellence, fall victim to the cruel, fiendish hate of incarnate devils? John Taylor asks a question that essentially all of us ask. Why does it seem that in this world horrible things happen to the best of people? Why is it that good people suffer? You might even ask yourself, why? Why do I suffer? I think that that's one of the things that we come to understand in our sojourn on immortality, that this is a veil of tears in the world. You will have tribulations, the Lord said. And John Taylor reflects on this. There are wicked people all over this world, and yet here are the good, these two great men who are being murdered, he goes on to say. Soon afterward, I was taken to the head of the stairs, and I laid there where I had a full view of our beloved and now murdered brother Hyrum. There he lay as I had left him. He had not moved a limb. He lay placid and calm, a monument of greatness even in death. But his noble spirit had left that poor tenement and was gone to dwell in regions more congenial to his exalted nature. Poor Hyrum. He was a great and a good man, and my soul was cemented to his. And if there was an exemplary, honest and virtuous man, an embodiment of all that is noble in the human form, Hyrum Smith was its representative. Several years after the martyrdom, in fact, at the same time of the anniversary of the martyrdom, in 1854, there was a ceremony held in Utah and multiple speakers talked about the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and what the prophet and Hyrum had done for us. The reality is, if you are a member of the church, you might wonder, why do we spend so much time testifying of Joseph Smith? Why do we talk about Joseph Smith all the time? Why does Joseph Smith matter so much? Because everything that we believe that matters comes from the revelations Joseph Smith received from the words that he translated from the gold plates, from the revelations he received from God about reorganizing the church from temple covenants and work for the dead, to knowing that you have a pre existent life and that you are an eternal being with a heavenly mother as well as a heavenly father. All of it comes from the prophet Joseph. We absolutely believe that Jesus is the Christ and Jesus is our Savior. But we believe it because Joseph Smith saw and talked to him. So at this meeting, John Taylor bore his testimony. And I won't read all of it, but I'll read some of it. And as I read it, I want you to think about this. John Taylor is not just an Internet troll. He isn't just someone saying that this is something that matters. John Taylor was with Joseph when Joseph was murdered. John Taylor walked with a limp for the rest of his life because he believed Joseph Smith was a prophet. John Taylor knew Joseph personally. And so I realized that, look, in our lives, we always have people who really think they know. And they want to take the time to pull us aside and say, if only you knew about Joseph Smith what I knew about Joseph Smith, then you wouldn't believe. Well, I challenge any of them. None of them, however wonderfully much they think they know, know Joseph Smith the way John Taylor knew Joseph Smith. So as he bears his testimony to you here, I want you to think about that. His testimony of Joseph as a personal one is different than whatever person thinks that they've uncovered about Joseph Smith that they want to share with you on their YouTube channel. Because none of them will know Joseph the way that John Taylor did. I was blessed. John Taylor begins to be associated with Brother Joseph Smith. As President Young said he knew him, so did I. I've been with him under all kinds of circumstances. When thick clouds of darkness gathered around and earthquakes seemed to bell and threatened destruction, when the forces of the earth were rallied against him, and also in times of prosperity. I've heard him speak, as many of you heard him speak in public, to advance the principles of eternal truth and plead with the people to observe the laws of God and to keep his commandments that they might be prepared for a celestial inheritance. But I have also been with him in private counsel. So I've had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with his feelings, his ideas, his views and with his morality, with his truthfulness and with his integrity. And I know that he was a good man, that he was an honest man, that he was a man of integrity, that he was a prophet of the Lord and that he lived in that capacity and that he died in that capacity, and that he maintained his integrity to the end. I was not only with Joseph living, but I was with him dying. And this is my testimony concerning Joseph Smith. I know before God and holy angels, I do not think it. I know it. I know that he was a servant of God and a prophet of the Lord, and he lived and died in the faith. And I not only know it by my natural sight, but by the revelations of God. And I know by the same way that he yet lives. For I have seen him, and I know that he yet lives. And therefore I rejoice in the testimony that I can bear concerning him. I know that he will live, and I know that he is a friend of this people and watching over their interests. I know that he's also a friend to President Young and watches over him, that he's interested in the welfare, the happiness and the exaltation of the saints of the most high. And having a knowledge of these things sustains my mind, it comforts my heart and strengthens me in the faith of the new and everlasting covenant and in the principles of truth we continue to hear. He goes on to say, I esteem it as one of the greatest blessings conferred upon me to participate in this priesthood that is the government of God in the heavens and upon the earth that rules and regulates and controls all the affairs of the eternal worlds, and that will rule and control and regulate the forces of this earth. I rejoice to Participate in the blessing of this gospel, in this priesthood. And I look upon everything else as short lived and temporal. Whether it is riches or poverty, ease or pain, whether it is prosperity or adversity. No matter what the circumstances may be in which I or in which you may be placed. It is a matter of very little importance to us if the circumstances that we are placed in have a tendency to lead us nearer to God, to make us more susceptible to his laws and to make us obedient to his command. That we may fulfill our destiny on the earth and be prepared to join with Joseph and with Hyrum, and with those who have lived in the faith and died in the faith of the Son of God. For Hyrum was a good man and a servant of the living God, and a man of integrity and truthfulness. And I saw him fell when he fell in prison. And I heard the last words he spoke. And I know that the desire of Joseph and Hyrum and was to promote peace. Whatever may have been the feelings of those that were around them, whatever their views might have been and had in relation to their ideas, their private and their public feelings, was to promote the happiness and well being of the whole human family. The worst feeling I ever saw any of them manifested by them was to procure the happiness and well being of the human family as far as God should give them the ability to do it. These were their private and their public feelings. The feelings they manifested before public congregations, before the world and in private council and under all circumstances. And although there are thousands of falsehoods in circulation concerning them, and although many of them are believed by the people, yet this was the bona fide feelings of these servants of God while they lived upon the earth. Did anyone ever hear them teach unrighteous principles? No. Did anybody ever see them practice unrighteous conduct? No. As President Young said, they were men, and they were perhaps the best men that lived. They might have some little weaknesses and foibles like all other men, but if they had been any better, they would have not been fit to associate with the people. But they were men of God. And they lived and died in the faith of that gospel they preached. And they did it sincerely with honest hearts before God and men. Therefore I pleasure in testifying of these things that I have borne that same testimony. I have done it here and in different nations before large public congregations. And I know that some people, especially abroad, don't like what I say. But these things have been my feelings here and will be to the day of my death. And through eternity. John Taylor's testimony, as I said, is a powerful one because he's not just someone passively bearing testimony of Joseph Smith. He's someone that experienced everything surrounding it. And as I said before, anyone who will in your life tell you that if only you knew what they knew, you wouldn't have a testimony of Joseph. Not one of those people will have known Joseph in private and in public like John Taylor did. Not one of those people will have sacrificed the way John Taylor did. And I would just add my testimony to his. I don't have the ability to say what John Taylor did. I haven't seen Joseph Smith in a vision. I wasn't with him in Carthage jail. But I have dedicated the last two decades of my life to studying all there is to know about Joseph Smith, to reading all the documents he produced, every sermon he wrote and gave, every minute of every meeting he was in. And I can testify that he was an honest and a good man. Yeah, he had failings like we all do, but there was no error in the revelations he taught. And as someone who has a PhD in history, I would put my testimony up in that like regard, that although you'll have people in your life tell you, oh, if only you knew what I know, then you wouldn't believe. Well, I defy that person because I don't know who it is who's talking to you. But I'm just going to guess that they don't have a PhD in 19th century American religious history and that they didn't spend the last two decades in the archives reading Joseph Smith's documents. They haven't been taught what is a good and what is a bad source. And I have. And that doesn't make me special or smart. I'm not any more special than anybody. But it's offensive to me when people say, if only you really studied this or knew, then you wouldn't believe. Because I have. I have studied it. But it's not because I studied it that I believe. I believe because the Holy Spirit of God has told me that Joseph Smith was a prophet. And that's the best part. You know, anybody who's listening to this, you might think, well, I don't have the next two decades to read every single thing Joseph ever wrote. I can barely read my Book of Mormon. You don't have to. You don't even have to be able to read. You can be illiterate and feel the power of the Holy Spirit of God tell you that Joseph Smith saw Jesus Christ. This is God's true church, so I bear my testimony of that. I am grateful that Joseph Smith brought the truth into the world he did. Grateful that he and Hyrum were willing to die so that we might have the truth. And I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmot. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth. Com. Until next time.
