"As I have contemplated the foundation laid by the early Saints, I have reviewed with reverence the sacrifice and devotion which they showed for the cause of truth. The pillars of their faith are still resident with us as a people today. We, like the early Saints, believe and testify, as the first pillar of our faith, that the Prophet Joseph Smith did indeed see the Father and the Son in the grove of trees in the spring of 1820. Said he, 'I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two Personages, and they did in reality speak to me' (JS—H 1:25). To those who questioned his experience, Joseph wrote, 'Why persecute me for telling the truth? I have actually seen a vision; and . . . why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it' (ibid.)."
I can tell the people that once in my life I felt a want of confidence in brother Joseph Smith, soon after I became acquainted with him. It was not concerning religious matters—it was not about his revelations—but it was in relation to his financiering—to his managing the temporal affairs which he undertook. A feeling came ever me that Joseph was not right in his financial management, though I presume the feeling did not last sixty seconds, and perhaps not thirty. But that feeling came on me once and once only, from the time I first knew him to the day of his death. It gave me sorrow of heart, and I clearly saw and understood, by the spirit of revelation manifested to me, that if I was to harbor a thought in my heart that Joseph could be wrong in anything, I would begin to lose confidence in him, and that feeling would grow from step to step, and from one degree to another, until at last I would have the same lack of confidence in his being the mouthpiece for the Almighty, and I would ...
Comments
Post a Comment