Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

“Emma is such a dear,” Lydia began. “With all she’s got going, she still takes time to write.”

  “What does she say?”

  She held up the paper. It was only a third filled with writing. “Very little. She inquired after the children. Asked how we were doing.” Her voice broke and she shook her head quickly, fighting for control. “She said that she and Joseph pray for us every night and morning. Other than that, it wasn’t much.” She looked up at him. “Except that she sent me a copy of the revelation the Lord gave her back in Harmony.”

  “The one where he told her to compile a book of hymns?”

  “Yes.” Lydia pulled the second sheet of paper out from behind the first. This sheet was nearly covered with Emma’s neat, precise handwriting. But Lydia laid it in her lap again and stared out at the room. “She could have said so much, you know.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the fact that she has buried four of her children, I have only lost one. Like the fact that Joseph is gone three or four times as much as you have been. He’s always gone here to this branch to preach, or off to that town to ordain someone to the priesthood. It’s a mission here, then Missouri there. He’s gone all the time.” Her shoulders lifted and fell. “It makes my problems look pretty small compared to hers.”

  “Emma’s problems don’t make yours any less real.”

  She reached up and touched his face. “Thank you for saying that. But I’ve lain here for the last three hours thinking about this, thinking about Emma. And I feel pretty small right now. Just take one example. Living with others. My parents have really opened their house to us here, but I still hate it. I hate not having my own house, my own kitchen, my own flower garden. I hate having to worry about Emily crying in the night and waking my parents.

  “Yet look at Joseph and Emma. For most of their married life, they’ve lived with others—her parents, his parents, the Whitmers in Fayette, the Whitneys in Kirtland, the Johnsons in Hiram. How she must have detested it, being passed from family to family, depending on their charity, never being alone.”

  She reached out and took Nathan’s hand, interlocking her fingers with his. “I came to Palmyra because I couldn’t face the possibility that you might be killed in Missouri. But Emma”— she blew out her breath in amazement—”she’s seen Joseph arrested, hounded, tarred and feathered, insulted, abused. They have to have bodyguards sleep in the house with them. It must leave her constantly terrified.”

  Nathan was nodding, remembering a day in Palmyra, several years ago now, when he had intervened in Emma’s behalf, stopping a group of men from mocking and insulting her. “She’s come in for a fair share of abuse herself.”

  “I know,” Lydia answered bleakly. “She told me one day what it’s like to be the Prophet’s wife, always on display, always being criticized for this thing or that thing which doesn’t measure up to people’s expectations.”

  Lydia turned to him now, her eyes shining. “That was a good part of my tears tonight, I guess. Thinking about Emma. She has challenges so much worse than mine, yet she continues on, standing by Joseph’s side, always so gracious, always so beautiful.”

  “You are gracious. You are beautiful,” he said gallantly.

  “Will you stop being so nice?” she laughed. “I’m trying to do some repenting here.”

  His eyes filled with mock gravity and he nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She picked up the second sheet of the letter from Emma, the one that contained the copy of Emma’s revelation. “Let me read you some things.”

  “All right.”

  “The Lord starts out by calling her his daughter. He also calls her an elect lady.”

  “Hmm. That’s a nice title.” He smiled at Lydia. “Elect lady? Yes, I like that. You are an elect lady, too, you know. I knew that that very first day when Joshua introduced us right outside the store. Do you remember?”

  She laughed. “Of course I remember. I can even tell you what I was wearing that day. Can you?”

  He gestured toward the paper in her hands. “It’s getting late. Tell me what the Lord said to Emma.”

  She laughed, taking his hand again. It had been so long since they had laughed together like this. It felt wonderful. She looked down, found the place she wanted, and started to read. “ ‘Behold thy sins are forgiven thee’ “—she squeezed his hand, and he squeezed it back—” ‘and thou art an elect lady, whom I have called.’”

  She took a quick breath. This was going to be harder than she thought. Slowly now, she continued, her eyes finding the lines and words she wanted. She chose only those things that had impacted her with such force earlier.

  “‘The office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto thy husband, in his—’ “ Her voice caught, and instantly tears filled her eyes again. She swallowed quickly, forcing them back. “‘The office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto thy husband, in his afflictions with consoling words, in the spirit of meekness.’ ”

  She lowered the paper. “You read it,” she said, her voice husky.

  Nathan reached out and took it from her hands. She pointed at the spot where she wanted him to go on.

  “ ‘Continue in the spirit of meekness,’ “ he started, his voice steady and firm, “ ‘and beware of pride. Let thy soul delight in thy husband. Keep my commandments continually, and a crown of righteousness thou shalt receive.’ ”

  “Don’t you just love that phrase?” Lydia whispered. “ ‘Let thy soul delight in thy husband.’ ”

  His eyes were thoughtful. “Yes. The same would be true for a man, I think. I know that my soul delights in you, Lydia.”

  “And mine in you,” she breathed. Straightening, she took the paper from him. She folded it carefully and placed it back in the envelope.

  “Those are beautiful words, Lydia.”

  “They are, but they are more than that,” she said softly. “They are my answer, Nathan.” She looked up at him, her eyes wide and filled with love. “They’re also your answer.”

  “My answer?”

  “Yes. Don’t you think I know what you’ve been praying for?”

  “I’ve been praying that I can make you happy again.”

  She reached up and kissed him softly. “I know. And now you have your answer.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes, I’m happy.” She kissed him again. “I’m so very happy.”

  He seemed a little dazed.

  “So let’s go back to Kirtland.”

  That brought his head up with a snap, then he immediately frowned. “You don’t have to do that for me, Lydia. I can be happy here if you wish.”

  She shook her head, then moved around so she was partially behind him. Slowly she reached down and grasped the bottom of his undershirt. His eyes widened, but he did not move as she lifted it enough to expose his chest. Tears streamed down her face now as she began to trace, ever so softly, the welts with her fingertips. “They did this because you were a Mormon?” she asked, her voice barely audible.

  He closed his eyes, then finally nodded.

  She let the shirt drop back into place, and put her arms around him. “Then, how can I not go back to Kirtland? I have things to do, covenants to keep.”

  He whirled around to face her. “Do you mean that?” he cried. “Do you really mean that, Lydia?”

  Her chin came up and she smiled through the tears. “How else can I ever expect to become an elect lady?”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The eighteen months between the fall of 1834 and the spring of 1836 provided a much-needed time of peace and relative tranquility for the Church of the Latter-day Saints and its members. For the most part, the Saints in Missouri lived in harmony with the citizens north of the river, though all agreed this would not serve as a permanent solution and Church leaders there began looking toward the northern, uninhabited areas of the state as a possible settling place. In Kirtland, the swelling numbers of Mormons pouring into Ohio still created some tension between member and nonmemb
er, but at least for a time, in both states, there were no serious outbreaks of violence.

  With the return of the men from Zion’s Camp, work on the temple intensified. The walls, only about four feet high when Zion’s Camp returned, went up quickly thereafter. Men gave a “tithing” of their time, most working at least one day a week on the building. During the winter, when farmers were idle, they donated much more. Each Saturday, the brethren would gather with their teams and wagons at the stone quarry south of town and, with Joseph acting as foreman, would cut and haul enough stone to the temple site to keep the stonemasons busy for the coming week.

  Benjamin Steed was called to serve as a member of the building committee and began to play a more and more prominent role in the erection of the structure. By now one of the leading land developers in Geauga County, Benjamin had purchased several blocks of property around the city, as well as two farms, one out south of town beyond the stone quarry, and the other east on the Chardon Road. When Nathan and Lydia returned from Palmyra, Benjamin persuaded them to leave their little homestead out on the Morley farm and manage both of Benjamin’s farms. This freed Benjamin so that he could spend his time developing his town properties into prime building lots. It also left him considerable free time, all of which he spent at the temple.

  Mary Ann was nearly as involved, for it was not just the men that labored on the Lord’s house. The women gathered frequently to sew, knit, and weave: first they concentrated their efforts on making clothes for the temple workmen; then later they made the carpets and the long curtains, or veils, that were designed to partition off the large assembly rooms into smaller compartments.

  By November of 1835 the plastering of the exterior began. Crushed glassware was added to the stucco to make the walls glisten in the sunlight. Under the direction of Brigham Young, who was a skilled carpenter and glazier, the interior was finished during February of 1836. The large assembly rooms were furnished at each end with elaborate and beautifully crafted pulpits for the presidencies of the priesthood quorums.

  The settling of affairs in Missouri freed many of the brethren for missionary work. They fanned out in every direction, carrying copies of the Book of Mormon in their knapsacks and the fire of testimony in their hearts. In 1830 the Church had been organized with six official members. By the end of 1835 there were nearly nine thousand Latter-day Saints.

  Nathan Steed was one of the many who contributed to this missionary effort. He and Lydia returned home in time to help his father harvest the fall crops, then he left on a two-month mission to Pennsylvania. He left for a month in the early spring of ’35 and visited the nearby settlements in Ohio, then left again the following fall, this time traveling more extensively through New York, Connecticut, Vermont, and Massachusetts. In his journal he recorded that, in all now, he had walked over two thousand miles, preached seventy-nine times, laid hands on the sick and blessed them over one hundred times, blessed over fifty children, and baptized nearly a hundred converts.

  This eighteen months was a time of many important developments in the Church. Changes in organization were made, additional scriptures published, new doctrines revealed. In February of 1835 the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, following the Lord’s instructions, chose twelve men to form a Quorum of Twelve Apostles. Two weeks later Joseph organized the Quorum of the Seventy. Some said that Zion’s Camp had been a failure, but it was interesting to Nathan to see that of the Twelve, all but three had marched to Missouri to redeem Zion; of the Seventy, without exception every one had been a member of Zion’s Camp.

  In the summer of 1835, Kirtland was electrified by a visitor from the East who brought some Egyptian mummies and some scrolls of papyrus filled with the mysterious hieroglyphic writing used by the ancients. Desirous to know what the writings contained, the Saints purchased the mummies and the scrolls for twenty-four hundred dollars, and immediately Joseph began work on the scrolls. To his joy, the Prophet discovered that they contained the writings of Abraham and of Joseph of Egypt.

  Later that same year the Saints received a second work of latter-day scripture to serve as companion with the Book of Mormon. A revised and expanded version of the Book of Commandments was published; it was called the Doctrine and Covenants. The first section of the book contained seven lectures on faith prepared by Joseph Smith and others and given at the School of the Elders. This section was called “the doctrine.” The second and much larger section contained “the covenants and commandments,” or the revelations Joseph had received from the Lord over the previous seven years. More than a hundred were included.

  But while these developments were exciting and gave the members much to talk about, for the most part life went on in the daily routine of making a living and raising families. For the Benjamin Steed family, it was a much-needed time for restoration as well. When Nathan accepted the task of running his father’s two farms, his mother persuaded him to move with Lydia and the children into town rather than live on one of the two farms.

  It proved to be one of the wisest things Nathan could have done, for it not only kept them in the mainstream of Church life but also united the family in an unusual way. Jessica and her young daughter moved into a small cabin next door to Benjamin and Mary Ann’s place, and was quickly welcomed and fully accepted into the Steed family circle.

  A month or two after Jessica’s arrival, Melissa prevailed upon her husband, Carl, to let Jessica work at the livery stable keeping the books. Carl at first agreed only reluctantly; but Jessica’s previous work experience with Joshua’s freight company in Independence proved invaluable, and thereafter Carl was pleased to have her work for him.

  When Lydia and Nathan returned from New York and agreed to live in town, the circle was completed. Jessica had dreaded this time, the time when she and the legendary Lydia met face-to-face. But any fears she had were quickly put to rest. Jessica understood now why Joshua had continued to nurse his fantasies about Lydia, but she also knew they had been nothing more than that.

  Mary Ann was thrilled with the way things worked out, of course. To have both of her daughters and both of her daughters-in-law around her was wonderful. And then there were the grandchildren! There were six now. Jessica’s little Rachel, a sober child with wide, vulnerable eyes and a pensive spirit, quickly became her grandfather’s favorite and went everywhere with him, her tiny little hand always reaching up to grasp his. Melissa had two sons now—young Carl, who had taken her dark hair and eyes, and David Benjamin, destined to be as redheaded and freckle-faced as his father. Lydia and Nathan’s oldest, young Joshua, would turn five in May of ’36. He was a frequent visitor to his uncle’s livery stable, where he and young Carl had the most wonderful romps. Little Emily, who had fully inherited her mother’s beauty, took a special liking to her Grandmother Steed, and they became fast friends. The baby, born in the fall of ‘35 and named Nathan Joseph, was a strapping youngster with an insatiable appetite and, as long as he was fed, a wonderful disposition.

  It was a frequent occurrence to have all the Steeds gather at Grandma and Grandpa’s house for a cornhusking, or to work on temple projects, or for dinner. There was not a day that went by but what Mary Ann and Benjamin gave thanks to the Lord for the blessing of having their family around them.

  Things were looking up for Nathan and Lydia; not only had they weathered their crisis, but their marriage entered a phase now in which their relationship deepened and was strengthened. Part of that stemmed from the promises Lydia had made to herself and to Nathan. Part of it came from the more reflective and mature Nathan who had returned from the experience of Zion’s Camp. When Joseph opened the Kirtland School in the winter of 1834-35, William E. McLellin was hired to teach geography, penmanship, arithmetic, and English grammar to the more than one hundred students—old and young, male and female—who enrolled. Nathan went to McLellin one day and suggested he consider Lydia as a substitute on those days when he got sick or had commitments he could not set aside. McLellin liked the suggestion, and L
ydia took to teaching as if she had been born to it.

  Then, in January of ‘36, when Joseph hired a professor from Hudson, Ohio, to come to Kirtland and teach the brethren Hebrew, Nathan immediately enrolled in the classes. Each night, when he wasn’t on guard duty at the temple, he would bring his notes home, sit Lydia down, and teach her what he had learned. At first it was just Lydia. But quickly Jessica and Rebecca and Mary Ann were part of these evening “classes” as well. Lydia and Becca were especially quick to pick up the Hebrew words and constructions, and soon were going around the house reciting: “Aleph, bet, gimmel, dalet, hay...” They would almost never make it clear through the Hebrew alphabet without breaking into gales of laughter.

  Worship was another thing that bound the Steed family together. No meetinghouses were constructed while the work went forward on the temple, so the Saints met wherever they could. During the winter it was usually in homes or in the school. In more pleasant weather they preferred to gather outdoors in some shady and grassy spot. Since Benjamin and Mary Ann had one of the larger homes in Kirtland, theirs was often the site of Sabbath services. Sunday meetings were simple. They would begin, usually at ten o’clock, with a hymn and a prayer, followed by sermons, then another hymn and a prayer of closing. The afternoon service was the same, only it also usually included the administration of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

  Weeknights were often filled with priesthood quorum meetings or other preaching services. The first Thursday of the month was “fast day.” The food saved by fasting was brought and distributed to the poor, then they had a “testimony meeting.” These meetings lasted much longer than Sabbath meetings, sometimes as long as six hours. The members would rise to their feet and bear testimony of their beliefs, or tell of manifestations of God’s good will in their lives. Often they would exhort one another to live more Christlike lives. “Physical fasting, spiritual feasting,” was the way Mary Ann described the fast meetings.

  There was another meeting of a more unusual nature that was held from time to time. In the first months of the Church’s organization, many people began to ask Joseph to petition the Lord for their own personal revelations. He did so, but as the Church grew in numbers this became more and more difficult for him to keep up with. In December of 1833, while giving blessings to his own family, Joseph was inspired to call his father as the Patriarch to the Church. In Old Testament times, the patriarchs—Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph—gave blessings to their children and others. These blessings gave the person counsel from the Lord, promised blessings if the individual was faithful, and warned about weaknesses or problems that the person should avoid.