Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  “You would have to bring that up,” Joseph said ruefully.

  In the fall of 1832, Joseph and Newel Whitney had taken a short trip to Albany, New York City, and Boston to raise funds for the establishment of a general store owned by the Church and run by Joseph and Emma. They were successful in acquiring a considerable amount of mercantile goods on loan, and returned and established the store. But very quickly there was trouble. Many of the Saints pouring into Kirtland were poor, some destitute. They requested that Joseph extend them credit, though clearly they had no prospects of ever paying him back. At first, Joseph refused, but to his dismay many members turned hostile and bitter. How could he, they demanded, who was a prophet, who preached Christian discipleship and charity, refuse them help in their direst hour of need? Some walked out—out of the store and out of the Church. Soon Joseph was extending credit to everyone, and within a few months the store failed miserably.

  “How much did you and Bishop Whitney borrow in order to buy all those supplies?”

  “Benjamin!” Mary Ann cried. “That’s not our affair.”

  “It’s all right, Mary Ann,” Joseph said. “If I’m asking for Benjamin’s help, he’s got a right to ask me questions in return.” He turned to him. “Between fifteen and twenty thousand dollars.”

  Benjamin whistled softly. “And that’s all gone now?”

  Joseph nodded glumly.

  “That’s what I mean, Joseph. You needed to stand firm with those freeloaders.”

  The Prophet’s face looked suddenly wistful. “Most of the Saints are people of integrity, Benjamin. But even when they fail in their duty, I decided that the worth of a soul was greater than the worth of dry goods. I could not refuse the Saints credit and risk them losing their testimonies on my account.”

  “You make a better prophet than businessman, Joseph.”

  Joseph laughed softly. “Was that meant as a criticism or a compliment, Benjamin?”

  Benjamin started to answer, then just shook his head.

  “Businessmen are easier to find than prophets, Joseph,” Mary Ann said softly. Then, before he could respond, she turned to her husband. “Benjamin, you are a businessman. A good one. An honest one.” Her eyes were pleading now. “You know this temple is of God. You may not be willing to admit it, not even to yourself. But you know it is.”

  He didn’t look up, not at her, not at Joseph.

  She reached across the table and touched the sleeve of his shirt. “Ben, you know the Spirit has borne witness to your heart about this work. So I’m asking you, Ben. Will you help Joseph? Will you help us build this temple?”

  For almost a full minute, the room was completely silent. Even the sounds of the children in the kitchen had quieted and the hush was complete. Finally, Benjamin looked up, turning to Joseph. “And what if we fail?”

  Those clear blue eyes that could seem so gentle one moment, and so piercing the next, calmly took the measure of Benjamin Steed.

  “You admit yourself that the Church is deeply in debt. You’ve got so many poor people pouring into Kirtland, the citizens are saying you’re going to break the county through pauperism. You tell me, Joseph, how can you not fail?”

  Joseph’s eyes clouded with pain for a moment. “Years ago I gave in to Martin Harris and let him take the hundred and sixteen pages of manuscript even though the Lord told me not to. And as you know, he lost them.”

  “I remember,” Ben nodded. “Martin’s wife was making things difficult for him.”

  “Well, at that time God taught me a great lesson, something I’ve never forgotten, Ben. It is the answer to your question. He said, ‘Remember, remember, it is not the works of God that are frustrated, but the works of men. The works and the designs and the purposes of God cannot be stopped, neither can they come to naught.’”

  He took a breath. “This temple is God’s work, Ben,” he went on. “I bear my witness of that. Your good wife has just borne her witness of that. She said that you have received your own witness from the Spirit of that.” He stopped, and then a smile began to play at the corners of his mouth. “I did not hear you deny it.”

  There was no answer. Benjamin seemed a little dazed by this turn in the conversation.

  “Do you deny it?” Joseph demanded, his voice suddenly like that of a lion.

  Mary Ann had come forward on the edge of her chair. She was staring at her husband. Oh, please, Ben, look inside your heart! She cried it to him across the silence.

  He looked at her, as though he had heard. “No,” he whispered.

  The atmosphere in the room was suddenly electric, filled with tension. “Then,” Joseph asked softly, “will you give us your assistance in building the house of the Lord?”

  Mary Ann held her breath.

  “Yes.”

  She felt her shoulders sag and tears spring to her eyes.

  But Joseph was not through. For what seemed like an eternity, he just gazed across the room at Benjamin, holding his eyes with his own. Then with slow and measured words, he went on. “I have one other question, my dear brother Benjamin.”

  “What?” Benjamin said, his voice barely a whisper.

  “There is another work, Benjamin, a work even more important and more grand than building a house of God.”

  “What?” Again it was barely audible.

  “Building the kingdom of God.”

  Time seemed suspended before Benjamin finally nodded slowly.

  “I am but a man, Ben. I have many weaknesses, many failings. But this is not my work, this is God’s work.”

  Joseph rubbed his hands across his eyes, as though suddenly weary, and continued speaking. “People are so quick to question sometimes. Why do we have to move to Ohio? Why are you trying to set up another Church center in Missouri? How can you govern a church whose members are separated by almost a thousand miles? How can you build a temple when you’re so poor? How can you ask people to consecrate all their material wealth and live as one? Sometimes I don’t know how to answer them, Benjamin. I don’t know what to say. Except this.”

  Now the weariness was gone, and the power in his voice sent little shivers up and down Mary Ann’s spine again. “God is in this work, Benjamin. We do not always see—I do not always see—the pattern he is weaving, the purposes he has designed. But pattern there is, and purpose there is. God will build his kingdom and no hand shall stop it, no man or combination of men can stop it. Do you believe that, Brother Benjamin Steed?”

  Ben was mesmerized, as were Mary Ann and Emma, and the question caught him by surprise.

  “I...”

  “Do you believe that, Brother Benjamin?” Joseph thundered.

  Benjamin jumped. His mouth was working but nothing came out.

  Now Joseph was suddenly pleading. “Search your heart, Ben. The Spirit is striving with you. Listen to it! Give heed to it! There is a greater work to be done than building God’s house, a far greater work, and the Lord wants you to be part of that too. You know that in your heart, don’t you?”

  Mary Ann was staring at her husband, stunned at what was happening. He turned to her, his eyes wide. For the longest time he did not move. Then, with what seemed like imperceptible slowness, he turned back to Joseph and his head bobbed once, then again.

  Mary Ann nearly leaped into the air. Emma let out her breath in a rush of air that sounded like an explosion in the stillness of the room.

  Joseph sat back, drained and yet beaming. “I knew you did. I knew you did.”

  Benjamin sat back now too, looking as if he’d been struck an unseen blow.

  “To help—to really help, Brother Ben—you must have the right tools. The gift of the Holy Ghost. The power of God’s holy priesthood. Those tools only come after baptism, Ben. Are you willing to be baptized and come unto Christ so you can better serve him in his kingdom?”

  There was no answer. Then, finally, Ben slowly turned his head to look at his wife. Her eyes flew open in disbelief, then instantly filled with tears. His eyes were g
listening. He was crying. For the first time in the nearly thirty years she had known him, Benjamin Steed was crying!

  In an instant she was to him and kneeling by his side. She took his hand in hers and laid it against her cheek, looking up at him with tear-filled eyes. Slowly, so slowly that she thought her heart would burst with joy before he finished, he nodded. His eyes never left hers as he whispered, “Yes, Joseph. Yes, I am.”

  With the coming of the summer of 1833, the Mormon migration to Zion in western Missouri recommenced in earnest. The five missionaries to the Lamanites had arrived near the beginning of the year 1831. The Colesville Branch arrived in the latter part of July of that same year in time to join the Prophet Joseph and the other brethren in the laying of the foundation of the first log cabin in Zion. Incredibly, just one year later there were nearly eight hundred Mormons in Jackson County, with more families arriving almost weekly. By July of 1833, the number had gone up half that much again. There were nearly twelve hundred Latter-day Saints in western Missouri.

  For the most part these emigrants were a homogeneous group, though they came from diverse backgrounds and locations. With few exceptions, they were from the East, many of them bringing with them a strong New England heritage. They were industrious, educated, and, for that day and time, quite used to the refinements of society. Though there was a fair share who had lived in simple cabins and homes along the frontier, just as many came from the established towns, villages, and cities of expanding America. They left well-crafted and finely furnished homes with fenced yards and neat flower and vegetable gardens. Carpenters, glaziers, potters, coopers, blacksmiths, merchants, hatters, and tailors could be found as commonly as the men of the soil. The literacy rate was remarkably high, and the education of their children highly valued.

  The homogeneity of these Saints was clearly tied to the faith they had all embraced. From the very beginning, the Church which Joseph Smith restored to the earth demanded the highest moral standards of its members. They were constantly exhorted to eschew evil and seek godliness, to worship God and love their neighbors, to care for the poor and to be industrious. “He that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer,” one revelation said plainly. This was not to say that the Latter-day Saints didn’t have many of the foibles and pettiness of other people, but the very nature of the Church tended to create a spiritual oneness unusual among most churches. This unity made it easy for total strangers to bond together quickly and gain a sense of communal identity.

  It was inevitable that this body of Saints—diverse and varied in their own right, but unified and similar in so many ways—should come into direct conflict with the Missourians living in Jackson County. The “old settlers,” as they were called, came largely from the mountainous areas of the Southern States. For the most part they had settled along the forested areas that lined the rivers and streams rather than taken the open prairie lands, which required some difficulty to plow but were fertile and rich when cultivated.

  Many of these old settlers were content with their simple lives and lack of conveniences—happy to live in what the “snippety Easterners” had a tendency to call poverty and squalor. They would clear a small farm plot and build a simple log cabin or sod hut. These often had no windows or doors and nothing but dirt for floors. Many did not have chimneys, and the inside walls would be dingy and gray with the accumulated soot and smoke of the daily cooking fires. Pictures, knickknacks, wallpaper—such adornments were rare. Pigs, chickens, and geese wandered in and out of the houses as freely as did the children, who commonly looked as wild as any animal of the forest. A large majority of the families were unschooled, and those who could read and write were the exception.

  Other factors contributed to the boiling pot that was starting to simmer in Jackson County. At this time in America’s history, Missouri’s western border, which lay just twelve miles beyond Independence, was also the western edge of the United States of America. Beyond that lay Indian Territory, and further on, the great, largely unexplored regions of the Rocky Mountains and the great Southwest. Many a blackheart who ran afoul of the law in the East fled west and settled in Independence. If trouble threatened, within an hour these outlaws could be across the border and out of the jurisdiction of constituted authority.

  With this combination of the lawless and the uneducated poor in Missouri, it was not surprising that behavior which the Saints looked upon with horror and disgust was accepted among most Missourians as a matter of course. Profanity, horseracing, gambling, drunkenness, whoring, and other forms of debauchery were viewed by many Missourians as their natural right, and they deeply resented anyone who looked down their long and proper noses at them for thinking that way.

  Further complicating matters was the fact that Missouri had come into the Union under the great “Missouri Compromise” of 1820. Although many of the old settlers were not slaveholders, still there was strong pro-slavery sentiment and bitter resentment against any abolitionist tendencies. Since the Saints were mostly from the North and the East, they rejected slavery on both social and moral grounds. Feelings on this issue were running especially high at this time. In Virginia the previous year, Nat Turner had led a rebellion in which over seventy whites and a hundred slaves were killed before it was put down. An irrational but primal fear swept across the slave states, causing deep and pervasive paranoia.

  The rapid influx of Mormons did little to resolve these deep and divisive differences in Missouri. One did not have to be particularly astute to see that, with more than a thousand Mormons already present and hundreds flocking in monthly, the political balance in Missouri would quickly swing to the Saints, and the Missourians would lose their political control.

  Once in Missouri, the Saints quickly established their own mercantile store. A. Sidney Gilbert, partner with Newel K. Whitney in the dry goods business, was called by the Lord to Missouri for that express purpose. Such a store would help the Saints economically, and provide badly needed goods. Once the store was established, the Saints naturally preferred to trade there whenever possible. Also, many of them had little cash money, and Gilbert allowed them to do business in trade. This deprived other merchants in Independence of the benefits of the burgeoning population. Worse yet, Gilbert chose his location well, placing his store next to the square that was considered the eastern terminus of the Santa Fe Trail. In a short time, the Gilbert store was siphoning off much of the lucrative trail business formerly handled by Missourians.

  It was indicative of how high feelings were running when in the spring of 1833 the Saints took a large share of the blame for a trick of nature. After heavy snows in the Rockies and considerable rain on the Great Plains, the Missouri River flooded. It wiped out the steamer landing in Independence and eventually carved a new river channel some distance away from the town. A new village with a better landing was established at Westport (later Kansas City) upstream a few miles, and Independence business sharply declined. Rumors began to fly that somehow the Mormons were responsible for the disaster, though no one ever attempted to provide a rational explanation as to how that was possible.

  During this time, the Saints were having their own internal problems. Seven high priests, with Oliver Cowdery as the head, were appointed to lead the Church in Zion. They were to select elders to preside over the five branches of the Church that were established, and were to regulate the affairs of the kingdom. But many of the incoming members ignored the direction of the leadership, and chaos quickly resulted. Others refused to accept the law of consecration and sought to gain property through some other means than properly constituted inheritances. Having the Prophet Joseph some eight hundred miles away did not help. Some even accused Joseph of caring only for the Saints in Kirtland and of seeking “monarchial power.”

  Learning of these problems, Joseph wrote a letter of rebuke to the Church in Missouri in January of 1833. “The Lord will have a place whence His word will go forth, in these last days, in purity,” he warned them;
“for if Zion will not purify herself, so as to be approved of in all things, in His sight, He will seek another people.” Orson Hyde and Hyrum Smith were appointed to write a letter to the Saints in Zion. “Repent, repent,” they cried, “or Zion must suffer, for the scourge and judgment must come upon her.”

  For a time it worked. Solemn assemblies were held in the various branches in Zion and the two letters read to the congregations. A spirit of contrition swept over the Saints. On April sixth, about eighty Saints gathered at the ferry on the Big Blue River to rejoice and thank God for the restoration of his church which had taken place exactly three years earlier on that day. It was a happy time, and for a few weeks harmony and peace prevailed in the land of Zion. But quickly the problems started all over again, and neglect of their godly duties began to creep into the Missouri branches of the Church again. The Lord’s warning had been given; the Lord’s warning had been mostly ignored.

  This was the state of affairs in Jackson County on July twentieth, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-three.

  Joshua stood at the bar of Clinton Roundy’s saloon on Main Street, watching the noisy rabble around him. The tavern was jammed, and with the liquor flowing freely it was pandemonium. One could sense the rage simmering just below the surface. Good, he thought. That was one of the purposes for starting in the saloons before moving to the courthouse. Every tavern and saloon in Independence was jammed at this moment, and that was not accidental. The committee of leading citizens that was formed to deal with the “Mormon problem” knew full well that liquor would play an important role in the day’s proceedings.

  Clinton Roundy, Joshua’s father-in-law—or rather, his ex-father-in-law now—came up to him, a tray of empty beer mugs on his arm. “Do you want them to have another round?” he asked.

  Joshua shook his head quickly. “No.”

  In April a similar meeting had been called, but someone had furnished a free barrel of whiskey. Before they could settle on any action, the men were blind drunk and the meeting erupted into a good old-fashioned “Missouri row.” They had accomplished nothing more than giving each other some good bruises and a few black eyes. This time the committee wanted to make certain that the liquor stoked the fires, not doused them. Joshua himself held a mug of beer, but he had barely touched it.