The Fairest Gem

“The spirit of the gospel is optimistic; it trusts in God and looks on the bright side of things. The opposite or pessimistic spirit drags men down and away from God, looks on the dark side, murmurs, complains, and is slow to yield obedience. We should honor the Savior’s declaration to be of good cheer. (In Conference Report, Apr. 1917, 43)

Elder Orson F. Whitney

On a number of occasions, Joseph Smith taught those in the camp to conserve natural resources and to avoid killing. One afternoon while preparing to pitch his tent Joseph and others discovered three rattlesnakes. As the men prepared to kill them, the Prophet said, “Let them alone—don’t hurt them! How will the serpent ever lose his venom, while the servants of God possess the same disposition, and continue to make war upon it? Men must become harmless, before the brute creation.” The snakes were carefully carried across a creek on sticks and released. Joseph instructed the camp to refrain from killing any animal unless it was necessary to avoid starvation. 17

17. History of the Church, 2:71–72.

The clergy were particularly vehement and sometimes ingenious in their opposition to the missionaries. In 1835 a Baptist deacon passed a pop-gun and ammunition through a window to a friend listening to a missionary sermon by Elder George A. Smith. Elder Smith wrote that the man shot “wads of tow [short broken fiber from flax that is used for yarn] at me all the time I was preaching. He was an excellent shot with the pop-gun, [and] most of the wads hit me in the face. I caught several of them in my hands. Many of them [the audience] were tickled, but some of them paid good attention. I finished my discourse without noticing the insult.” ²⁷

27. George A. Smith, “My Journal,” Instructor, Oct. 1946, p. 462.

The fourth general conference of the Church convened in a schoolhouse in Kirtland township on Friday, 3 June 1831. Many missionaries in Ohio returned for the meetings. Minutes record that sixty-three priesthood holders were in attendance. ²⁹ In Joseph Smith’s words, “The Lord displayed His power to the most perfect satisfaction of the Saints” at the conference. ³⁰ After the opening business, Joseph announced that the Lord wanted worthy elders “ordained to the high priesthood.” ³¹ These were the first ordinations to the office of high priest in this dispensation. The Prophet ordained five brethren high priests; one of them, Lyman Wight, ordained several more in the same meeting. John Corrill and Isaac Morley were called to be counselors to Bishop Edward Partridge and were set apart to that calling by Lyman Wight. ³²

During the conference the Spirit was with the Prophet in an “unusual manner. The spirit of prophecy also rested upon Lyman Wight: “He said the coming of the Savior should be like the sun rising in the east, and will cover the whole earth.” He predicted that some of the brethren would suffer martyrdom for the sake of their religion and would seal their testimony of Christ with their blood. ³⁴ The Prophet Joseph, Harvey Whitlock, and Lyman Wight saw the heavens open and Jesus Christ sitting on the right hand of the Father. Lyman testified that he saw the Son of God making intercession to the Father for the Saints. ³⁵

34. In McKiernan and Launius, An Early Latter Day Saint History, p. 67; punctuation standardized.

35. In McKiernan and Launius, An Early Latter Day Saint History, p. 67; see also “Levi Hancock Journal,” LDS Historical Department, Salt Lake City, pp. 91–92.