Funeral Sermon of Joseph Smith
Saints and Sinners, thus said John on the Isle of Patmos, and thus say who have lived on the earth, I in Nauvoo. Two of the greatest and best men,^who have lived on the earth, since the Jews crucified the Savior, have fallen victims to the popular will of mobocracy in this boasted “Asylum of the oppressed”—the only far famed realms of liberty—or freedom, on the globe; and the sword of justice, that ought to glitter with vengeance to repel such an insult to humanity—and the rich boon of life, and the free pursuit of happiness, hangs in the closet; and the stately robes of jud[g]ment that might clothe the sons of freemen with “brief” authority to wipe off the stain of innocent blood shed by a philistine clergy and hypocritical people, from our national there escut[c]heon, hangs there too; and ^there they will hang till Jehovah comes out [of] his hiding place and vexes the nations with a sore vexation:—for, righteously speaking, this people are lingering with the consumption, like with the scurvy a cruiser 7 years out Demagogue Seamen ^on board of a long cruiser, and the [indecipherable] sharks are gliding after, in the wake, to swallow their victims, as soon as they in drop from the plank to the sea. So passes the world ^inwickedness.
Joseph Smith was the first apostle and seer that held the priesthood of God, and promulgated the fullness of the everlasting gospel, since this church was driven into the wilderness, after the old apostles fell a sleep: and the seed of the wicked one, schooled in corruption, and led by the spirits of the damned, in this instance before us, has done to our brethren what Cain did to Abel, killed the body to stop the power of the holy priesthood on earth; showing the wise that Satan and his followers fear and dread a channel of communication between God and men. These holy men, like Abel, like the ancient prophets; like Jesus, have not been slain for any evil done; told the truth, oh no! but because they ^told the truth chastened the ungodly in their sins, and offered salvation free, with works meet for the kingdom of God. We can rejoice at savage affliction, ^however and congratulate our prophet and patriarch, that they have died it the Lord, and the spirit says they can rest from their labors and their works will follow them, while ^their persecutors, and this nation, and the ungodly of every nation, will wax worse and worse, till their cup of iniquity runs over, and they meet the blaze of Jehovah’s zeal and melt and burn up like pitch in the fire.
If I mistake not, Joseph Smith has been drag[g]ed into courts, to answer Christian hold convenience, and country custom, and satisfy the demands of the “elect” who wear hold a he “little brief authority,” about fifty times; and ^he always came out of ^these gentile furnaces’ without the smell of fire from his garments: and what is most lovely and Jesus like, he never returned the compliment to fret the gizzard of this whole Cain spirited race. In fact, the priest and deacons, in Wayne county N.Y., tried their best to have him indicted for blasphemy, when he commenced the translation of the book of Mormon, where some of the sacerdotal high-way-men actually swore that Joseph was a conjurer, and was engaged in writing a religious Book to revive the house of Israel according to the prophets, as it was in old times. And not a few of the order of saint Satan after a bill of indictment was refused by the better sense of some well wishing unbelievers in the then Christian arts, declared publicly that Jo Smith would have to stop his calculations about gathering Israel, that pestered the world too much in old times; and as to any more revelation or visits from angels—neither were needed, as the present generation were so much enlightened, it was nonsense to suppose God would have to teach a college bred Clergy. “False prophets were to arise: Beware”!
Well, the rule is, by their fruits ye shall know them; Do men gather grapes from thorns; ^or figs from thistles? what good deeds have followed the Christian exertions over a the globe; with their bible societies, mite societies, missionary societies, and ^a wealthy well divided retinue of Doctors of divinity to go with purse and script [sic] from sea to sea, and from land to land? Judge a righteous Judgment and open the doors of refinement in this secret of hypocrisy, debauchery and luxury, and open the curtain aside from the heathen in their blindness, degradation and misery, and with ^Jehovah you may say, “There is none that does good; no; not one.” But when this gospel, which our Elders preach, goes, God goes with it, and the hireling clergy of the present generation, like a “Jack O lanterns,” is only visible at a distance, hurrying or hovering over marshes and fens in the dark. Men and day of glory; and come from where they may, and be they of what tongue, kindred or people that is—they all believe in one faith, one baptism, one god and Father; and more still, in one prophet, one kingdom, and one union, which so wonderfully causes ^a part of all, both great [and] small to seek and find; knock and the door of heaven opens, and pray and the gifts and blessing, as they ever were, where the righteousness of the saints exceeded the false pretenses of much religion, are showered down like the dew upon grass, and the latter day saint, has only to raise his hands in the fulness of his eyes seeing, and heartfelt gratitude, and exclaim—O God thou art merciful to me, a sinner! Keep me from evil, and help me to do thy will.
Joseph has ^gone to his royal kindred in paradise, from whom the keys, the power, and the mystery came, for the use and benefit of mortal and immortal beings; and remember, beloved friends, that while he lived here upon the earth, he conferred all the keys, and blessings of the priesthood, and Endowments, ^upon the apostles and others that are needed for the gathering of Israel; for our washings and anointings, and sealings and adoptions and for sanctification and Exaltation, or for bringing up our dead from among the spirits in prison; so when the temple is made ready for the holy work; so we can go on from birth to age; from life to lives; and from world to heaven; and from heaven to eternity; and from eternity to ceaseless progression; and in the midst of all these changes; we can pass from scene to scene; from joy to joy; from glory to glory; from wisdom to wisdom; from system to system; from god to god, and from one perfection to another, while eternities go and eternities come, and yet there is room —for the curtains of endless progression are stretched out still and a god is there to go ahead with improvements.
Be assured, brethren and sisters, this desperate “smite” of our foes to stop the onward course of Mormonism, will increase its spread and rapidity an hundred fold: The bodies of our brethren are marred, by physical force; because the flesh was weak; and the but the priesthood remains unharmed—that is eternal without bengining [sic] of days or end of years; and the “Twelve,” (mostly now absent) are clothed with it, as well as others, and when they return, they will wear the “mantle” and step into the “shoes” of the “prophet, priest and king” of Israel; and then with ^the same power, the same God, and ^the same spirit that caused Joseph to move the cause of Zion with mighty the power will qualify them to roll on the work until all Israel is gathered, and ^the wicked swept from the earth; The same spirit lights the saints; the same truth magnifies the promises; the ^same virtue exalts the meek, and the same cases hastens the same events for joy; so that I may say with the poet:—Mormonism—
“Warms in the sun; refreshes in the breeze; Glows in the stars; and blossoms in the trees; Lives through all life; extends through all extent; Spreads undivided, and operates unspent.”Glows in the stars; and blossoms in the trees; Lives through all life; extends through all extent; Spreads undivided, and operates unspent.”
Did Joseph ever grind the face of the poor, or intermingle with ^the wicked torites ridicule the Anciently, as well as now, weak minded persons supposed that prophets and saints suffered death or trouble for their sins. I wish to correct this notion. The righteous are undo^ubtedly removed from evils to come by death; and chastened to learn the love of their father for their eternal welfare, but with a few questions and answers, I think friendship and punishment, and good and evil, will exhibit their own characters; so, let me ask—Was Joseph Smith the friend ^of gamblers, drunkards, robbers, fornicators, adulterers, liars and hypocrites? No; read his life from Vermont to Carthage Jail, and ever[y] line and every act, shines with virtuous principles, and words of wisdom, that warms this heart with a god like sensation that he labored like the angels with Sodom and Gomorrah, to save this generation from the “fire shower of rain.”
Worship of God whether it related to the highest or heathen religion, as practiced in America, Europe Asia, or Africa? Not he; The revelations he brought forth are everlasting witnesses that he, like the savior, came not “to feast and eat drink and be marry, for tomorrow we die,” but to point out the way of life, and call upon all men, to repent and be saved.
Can the political pioneers of the day who are exploring every state, nook, river, mountain, plain, and ravine, for the elects sake, and (may be) for “the lo[a]ves and fish[e]s,” where with all to satisfy the cravings of nature; can one of them point to the time and place when he sought powers for political purposes—for self aggrandizement? Never; as Lieutenant general of the Nauvoo Legion, he was a saint in Epaulettes and prayed as devoutly to the Captain of his salvation, as the Captain and great High priest of this whole world prayed to his Father in the garden of Gethsemane, where he sweat blood for the folly of Jerusalem. As mayor of Nauvoo, he magnified the law and made it honorable for saint and sinner; he knew what was right and did it, independent of consequences—with a “Thus saith the Lord.” [Vision V 1.]17
Like the sun in his meridian splendor, Joseph Smith shown [sic] a full man, at home, among his friends, in the fields, on the bench, or before the world; a pattern parent; a worthy friend; a model general; a righteous judge, and the wisest man of the age, sustained by truth, and “God was his right hand man.” Surely, as one of the holy ones commissioned by his father among the royal seventy, when the high council of heaven set them apart to come down and “multiply and replenish this earth,” he was the “last,” and who knows but the “greatest,” for he declared—we—knew not who he was! So, I may say, as the last is to be first, and the first last in eternal rotation, that Joseph Smith, who was Gazelem18 in the spirit world, was, and is, and will be in ^the endless progress of Eternity:—the Prince of Light.
‘Tis so, and who can dispute it? Where ^ever he reasoned on the old prophets, his, words lit up a sacred flame, in the heart of the saint that showed an ocean ^of existence unexplored by the vain philosophy of the world; when he poured ^out his eloquence, the gentile, on the reserved ^rights of all fools, declared I would rather go to hell than believe that imposter—and who cannot but say, amen! ^go! and when he spoke of men, he read their history and secrets from their own hearts, without trying the patience of Job, or wasting the life time of Methuselah, to hunt excuses to cover their sins: what he knew came natural; without going to Solomon to under^stand wisdom; or plodding through Blackstone19 to learn what constituted the first principle of right; or reading a half a world full of [indecipherable] ious novels to arrive at the purity of virtue; he quoted the finer sentiments of morals, divinity, legislation, and laws, with strictest rules ^of society and etiquette, as if he had learned them in his mother’s lap; and though they were original with him, they were always correct. He was a man of God.
Nor ^were these the only gems that shined from his celestialized mind; he seemed to have been educated among the sons of God, where the “morning stars” sang together, and ^could weigh ^or describe consequences, materiality, kingdoms, and and their inhabitants, with a familiarity as simple as a farmer’s boy would describe his father’s orchard: The present light of the sun, ^said he came from the “clouds of heaven,” which surrounded it; when they came away with the savior, to fulfill his second coming, the sun will would be, darkened and all flesh, that remains, will would see it—and, the viel, [sic] which is now will spread on all nations, being removed, we, the saints, would see as we are seen, and know as we are known; and Zion, being gathered as the best of saints from many creations, will hold a grand jubilee, of prophets, priests and kings, with their wives, and children, for the purpose of crowing the faithful to enter into the joys of their Lord; prepar[a]tory to their going into eternity to multiply and replenish new worlds,—For as Jehovah says his name is “endless and eternal,” so the increase and government of the kingdoms have no end; Amazing thought! But who has numbered the gods, or their kingdoms? Who has been up to the Highest to behold his perfection, improvement, and ceaseless progression? Or who has surveyed the cosmonam [?], where matter generates and space swells into room for everything? Aye who? I will give the life time of the Almighty for the answer to come, and time again to the prophet and patriarch who have ^gone to paradise to help the Holy one, wind up the wickedness of this world.
And what shall I say of the prophet. The Prince of light, he that pointed out the faults in the wisdom of men, and demonstrated the folly of the philosophy of ages? He that cut the chain cable of Christian convenience, with the sword of the spirit, as if it had been a silken thread in the blaze of a candle? He that cut the gordian of knot of with ^its bastard matrimony, ^same scissors that Peter used to clip the gentile locks and Jewish curls, that grew into^and flourished in families being by order of Nimrod, Nebuchadnezzar, and Caesar? He that took of truth for his pruning knife, virtue for his coat ^mail and God for his guide and undertook to prune the vineyard of the Lord for the last time? What! in this age of inventions, flying intelligence, and self shining glory, what shall I say of Joseph the seer, whose innocent blood stains the land of freedom, stains the halls of legislation; stains the judges ’ bench; stains the priests’ pulpit; and stains the nation’s panoply—yet, what shall I say of this patriot of purity? I will ^say he was all he was—the agent of Jehovah to call on all the trespass committed upon the word of the Lord and call fora ^nd ^rendersatisfaction for the forcible expulsion, by the powers of “Church and state,” of the holy priest-and to make men render hood; t^o gi^ve an account of the deeds done in the body—whereby the sacred order of matrimony had been corrupted: and he came not from the hot-beds of college arts, and university science to invent new creeds, and enlarge the breach of division, but he came; without the “stolen thunder” of some pretty prince of this world; to wake admiration yes, he came self made, and fired his own earthquakes to summon the world to judgment; he came, not in a tempest of wrath, but in the still small voice of Jehovah with full power to restore the holy priesthood: he came not in [“]the whirl-wind of public opinion” but in ^the simple name of Jesus Christ with love that surpasses understanding, to form a “union” that astonishes all the “powers that be,” and sets this the priesthood of Baal at defiance. And all hell howls with ^”a host of hired servants ”— to “ kick up ” for them!
He came to reveal the ancient history of Ephraim and Manasseh, mixed among the nations, the tribes of American Indian, unaccounted for by this the surplus notion of the learned, and, in their unlettered degradation, to report them as the heirs apparent, for the benefit of morality, and eternal lives, of that Almighty power, which the world can neither give nor take; he came to bring the book of Mormon to light from its angel guarded home in ^the hill Cumorah; and to translate it by the common sense of inspiration, and hurl [?] this boasted wisdom of the 19th century. He came in what is termed the age of light and reason, to stamp in letters of blood the “splendid religions” of the day, as a spiritual delusion, leaving as a frock fitted clergy, and stall-fed philosophy to keep it from tumbling into the “slime pit,” ^of magnetism, masonerism, socialism, ^and debauchery; and he came with the keys unlock Pandora’s box of free thinking and “popular fury ”— and he’s done it !
He came fully posted to meet the Devil, or any of the Clerks – bowing as “gentlemen,” – or He came to give the commandments and law of the Lord, to build temples, and teach men to improve in love and grace, that the wise among men might gather out of spiritual Babylon, which is temporal and spiritual wickedness, untill [sic] instead of church and state,—that Saints might “tithe” to save themselves from being ^burned in the great day of God Almighty. —If Jesus came to die and rise, to lead captivity captive, so did Joseph come to die and increase the power to bind Satan; that eternal lives and eternal progression may might search the eternal round with out impidement [sic]. He ^came to feel after the purses and consciences of this money loving generation and to push ^in the golden age, so that the wealthy may waste their millions in extravagance, while the poor starve unnoticed, unless the[y] trust in the Lord, and flee to Zion, and there prepare for the great day of battle and war! He came to establish our church upon earth, upon the pure and eternal principles of Revelation, prophets and apostles, for the holy reason, God never acknowledges, and accepts a church upon earth, as his, without there is a prophet in it to tell of it.
“Fluttering” as ‘ladies’; glided to attract attention; or cloaked to escape notice; and the devil knew it; For said he in one his great sermons, “Where ever I am the Devil is—to watch my progress—but he is a gentlemen”; by this you may know the saints from the sinner. The Mormon is a man; the Christian—a gentleman; So the hypocrite magnifies ^his neighbors faults; the Mormon minds his own business. all f[There is a small hole in the manuscript at this point.] to settle the he[ink blot] cam.ot] the rep [ink blot] word of God; ^and prepare for the day of judgment ^He came to pu ^ish vice, and praise virtue; he came to darken ^the dungeons of lust, and light ^ the mansions of love; he came to expel the errors of ages, and teach men to walk in the light of the Lord; And he came to war against the devil and eternalize his privilege of dripping [?] vengeance, mixed with venom round the fire of the damn’d!
He is dead, but he lives; he is absent ^from us, but here, but at home in heaven; he is where he can use the treasury of snow and hail; he can now direct the lion from the thicket to lay the gentile cities waste; and cause the young lion to go forth among the herds and tread down and tear in pieces and none can deliver. Wo to the drun[k]ards with Ephraim! and the great whore of Babylon! for their destruction is sure, and their end near. Pestilence, famine, fi re, and the sword, will no longer lay backed up in the maga zine of plagues reserved for superior occasion, but the still small voice of mighty angels waste on, whispers , waste on , ye scamps for the wicked, waste on, by sea and land; ^waste on touch the high and the low, the bond and the free; the rich and the poor; ^Waste on! Waste on, till the consumption by the Supreme Court of Heaven, all the actions that forget God and have pleasure in unrighteousness. And all eternity responds, — ^Waste on! till so let it be ! great Babylon sinks like a mill stone cast into the sea, to rise no more!
Governor Ford20 said, when Moses rose up in Egypt with a new religion, against what the priests were then practicing, there was a mighty ^stir among the people, and all Israel had to leave; and so when Jesus came among the Jews with a new religion, they crucified him, and can the Mormons hope for anything less from our “higher order of society” in these ^free United States? Can Mr. Smith with his phalanx of elders, right in the broad of face of all the wisdom, philosophy, improvement, and morality and above all, of long established Churches, where religion like education, is liberally patronized and made popular? Can he, hope to pass the scrutiny of public opinion without encountering the same destiny that has attended all new religions? Then whirling on his heel observed, in a low tone to one of his aids,—“the trial must come.” and so it has. But, Brethren and Sisters, Tom Ford is supposed to be one of those beings that believes when a child was born, that some person has died; and that the spirit of the dead one then enters the living child—but unfortunately, we must come to the conclusion from analogy, that when Tom Ford was born, nobody died. Perhaps this governor, like pharoah, had his heart hardened to test the faith of the saints—that Israel migh[t] flee from the terrible enjoyment of freedom, where the constitution allows all men to worship God according to the dictates of conscience, if there is no new revelation to expose the sins of this people. In case there is—hush! And yet the spirit whispers, what shall I say of Joseph the seer, cut off from his useful life in the midst of his years? Why, I will say that he has done more in fifteen years, to make the truth plain—open the way of life; and carry glad tidings to the meek—whereby Israel, or more properly the sons of Joseph, mixed with ^the gentiles, can hear the long expected “call”—come home my children for the day of your release is near, than all Christendom has done in fifteen hundred^years, with money, press, and a hired clergy; Joseph Smith, as the savior predicted, has sent the gospel to the poor, without purse or script [sic]; without the Right Reverend D. D. of Yale, Oxford, Gotham, or Nicholas of Russia, to lend a helping hand as prime minister of the church militant; none of these lambskin sacerdotals, not even the Archbishop of Canterbury, or Pope of Rome, have so much as nodded good luck to the boy that hunts for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And yet, glory to God, in the highest, the very dust has spoken; the meek have heard; the wise have come; and the everlasting gospel is being preached to all nations as a testimony that the last days are here and the wicked must perish.
Tell the world, and let eternity bare record, that the great name of Joseph Smith will go down to unborn worlds and up to sanctified heavens, and gods, with all his shining honors and endless fame^as stars in his crown, while the infamy of his persecutors will^can only only be echoed in their ashes. Well may it be writt^en, congratulated the dead that die in the Lord, for in this time, verily says the spirit, for they can rest from their labors, and their works shall follow them. All hail the ^sad triumphant deed! The souls under the altar, that John saw, hail it as the harbinger of Jehovah’s vengeance! The “little season,” when their fellow-servants, and brethren should be slain for the truth’s sake, as they had been in past ages, has come! While the Delilah of the gentiles is kissing her paramour, and clipping his locks, singing softly: “Hush my dear, ly[?] s^it still and slumber, Ladies always “Angels nea^ry guard thy bed; “All thy blessing, with out number, “We have “I am takeing from thy head.”
Joseph has escaped through blood to bliss to fire the indignation of the holy ones ever who wrote the destinies of men! And he is an angel now, and if evere/v/r/ there was a time when the “vials of wrath,” ought to be poured out upon the wicked—it is now and hence! and who can do it better then Joseph? The earth is ripening^ and hell is merry with misery, so, rejoice ye saints, for the triumph of the wicked is short; they can kill the in body, as we have ^in this sample, but mormonism is a celestial medicine, and must be applied as the sovereign remedy ^for all sin;. After the lawyers, and judges, and juries, and doctors, and priests, and statesmen, and people have spent their judgment upon the case, and squandered their means and mites, to cover up crime, and set the murderers free, then, yes my friends, then the union of players, the long suffering of patience, the quellings of virtue, the diligence of sincerity, the widow’s mourn and the orphan’s tears, will most certainly move Jehovah to vex this nation, and all nations, that have rejected, and slain his prophets and apostles; Then comes the day of calamity; then passes this bitter cup; then, brethren and sisters, we can laugh at their distress and trouble; and mock when their fear comes; to witness how severely easy the Lord can sprinkle the “hot drops” of heaven upon the gentiles to consume their proud flesh, and fit their impure souls for an apprenticeship in hell, “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” Our God you know has parts and passions, and when he enters into judgment with our persecutors and has sufficiently troubled them on earth, I mean such pseudo gentlemen, as Cain, Nimrod, Korah, Judas, Herod, Boggs,21 Ford and their associates, I have an idea, that the resurrected saints, who have come up through great tribulations, will give them, in return, for their practiced science of satan, a turn or two of even handed justices , when they bind them in fetters of brass and iron; and bid them an ever lasting farewell and faithful execution of the judgment written, for his honor have all the saints. Praise ye the Lord! The prophet and patriarch have gone to paradise to bear testimony of the wickedness of the world, and help hasten the deliverance of the saints. Joseph goes back among his old associates of the other [?] world, who have waded through like scenes of affliction in the several ages past, and being beyond the power of death, as he was mighty for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, among good men, to raise and exalt them for eternal lives; how much more almighty will he be with the spirits of just men made perfect, and the Holy ones, to prune the vineyard; remove the bitter branches; and give room for the speedy fulfillment of his great and last revelation? And how long, as Daniel said, to the end of these wonders? How long till the children of Israel, gathered from the four quarters of the earth, will begin to multiply according to the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and endorsed by the Savior with an hundred fold of wives and children? Verily, how long till the Israel of God becomes as numerous as the sands upon the sea shore; as the stars of the heaven for numbers; and death and the devil have no power to steal sheep? trouble the saints upon the earth? And the Spirits echo — How long?
To close, I will say, the blood of all the prophets, shed from Abel to Joseph must be atoned for; the debts must be paid, whether in blood for blood, or life for life, matters not; when man takes what he cannot restore; let him die the second death, when “there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth,” and learn our perfect rule of right, that no murderer inherit eternal life; It is all one to us what the mob does with their work hands; the great day is at hand; the master trump sounds; wake the world for the conflict of power; let the spirits of ^the damned enter their comrades as the legion did ^the swine; bring out the foes of all good, from Cain to the flood; from Ham to Babel; from Nimrod to Sodom; from Abimelech to to [sic] Egypt; from Pharoah to to [sic] the 185,000 spirits that met the angels of war; and all a ^spostate vagabonds, from the angel of war’s glorious night till now, and let ^them help their fellow sinners soar away; a few more daring deeds, a few more desperate cases; and fate will will call home his haven [?] of the ^little black ^further while the trumps sound that unexpected sentence; it is finished! it is finished! The saints are free; Jehovah’s won the victory, and a righteous man is lost! Amen.
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