No Man Knows My History - Fawn Brodie

(Summary of Book)

A biography about Joseph Smith.

Was Joseph Smith a person who could no longer distinguish reality from dream? Ms. Brodie presents the history of a man who has been an enigma, perhaps only because his past history has never fully been disclosed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons.

The book is written by Fawn M. Brodie and is the biography of Joseph Smith. She has done a great deal of research and has her work well documented. Her book takes the title from Joseph Smith's own words speaking to an audience of 10,000 in Nauvoo on April 7, 1844 --

"You don't know me; you never knew my heart. No man knows my history. I cannot tell it; I shall never undertake it. I don't blame anyone for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I could not have believed it myself"

Ms. Brodie gives credit where credit is due; but at the same time gives no special sympathy to the fact Joseph Smith was the Mormon prophet and founder of the LDS church. She tells it "as it is."

Joseph was never much interested in religion at the beginning. He hated farm work. His family was not rich. His mind was "very imaginative" and inventive. When it came to telling a story, he enjoyed the reaction from others. People were compelled to listen. He was bright, although he never finished school. He was reasonably attractive, except for his large nose.... his six foot and muscular build along with his compelling blue eyes made him a natural leader with a strong charismatic personality. Capturing a crowd and telling a story fed his enthusiasm for life.

He was raised in the period where preachers and new churches blossomed. It was a revivalist era. He was also very fascinated with mysticism and magic. During his early years he took to using divining sticks and "seeing stones" to find hidden treasures in the earth. He often hired out to farmers who wished to find gold or wealth on their lands.

Eventually, this ended when he was brought into court and accused of fakery and deception. His magic arts only got him in trouble. "His reputation before he organized his church was not that of an adolescent mystic brooding over visions, but of a likable ne'er-do-well who was notorious for tall tales and necromantic arts and who spent his leisure leading a band of idlers in digging for buried treasure."

Despite his giving up "money-digging," he retained his peep stone and some of his other psychological artifacts.

Joseph fell in love with Emma who was a very beautiful daughter of Isaac Hale. Isaac hated the thought of his daughter marrying Joe. Isaac Hale thought of Joe as a "money digger and deceiver of people." Two years or so later, Joe and Emma's love could not be destroyed... they finally married in secret. Joseph had promised Isaac that he would be a good provider for Emma. Even years after their marriage and Joe had established his church, Emma's father never changed his negative views, doubts, and distrust for Joseph.

Joseph had an interest in the burial mounds in that area. Much had been said and speculated about the mounds of human bones left on the Eastern landscape. Too, in the family, there was much made of a relative who published a small book. It really wasn't much, but it gave the family great pride. Perhaps this was what triggered Joe's interest in the writing of a book.

Brodie speculates that Joseph Smith had interest in writing a history book explaining the mound building. But eventually she believes the effort evolved into a religious work. Brodie gives a great deal of credit to the organizational structure of the Book of Mormon. There is little doubt that it wasn't just thrown together with little thought. Also, the Book of Mormon demonstrates that the book could only have come from an imaginative and inventive mind. Brodie made these comments:

"... Joseph had developed a remarkable facility for dictation. ... To belittle his creative talent is to do him as great an injustice as to say that he had no learning -- a favorite Mormon thesis designed to prove the authenticity of the book.

"His talent, it is true, was not exceptional, for his book lacked subtlety, wit, and style. He was chiefly a tale-teller and preacher. His characters were pale, humorless strereotypes; the prophets were always holy, and in three thousand years of history not a single harlot was made to speak. But he began the book with a first-class murder, added assassinations, and piled up battles by the score. There was plenty of bloodshed and slaughter to make up for the lack of gaiety and the stuff of humanity.

"Many stories he borrowed from the Bible. The daughter of Jared, like Salome, danced before a king and a decapitation followed. Aminadi, like Daniel, deciphered handwriting on a wall, and Alma was converted after the exact fashion of St. Paul. The daughters of the Lamanites were abducted like the dancing daughters of Shiloh; and Ammon, the American counterpart of David, for want of a Goliath slew six sheep-rustlers with his sling.

"The book improved in tempo as it was written; there were fewer sermons and more adventures. But the prose style was unfortunate. Joseph's sentences were loose-jointed, like an earthworm hacked into segments that crawl away alive and whole. Innumerable repetitions bogging down the narrative were chiefly responsible for Mark Twain's ejaculation that the book was 'chloroform in print.' The phrase 'and it came to pass' appeared at least two thousand times.

"The last haf of the book, however, possessed a dramatic intensity utterly lacking in the first half. Whereas the early portion had no political flavor except for casual references to America as 'the land of liberty' and descriptions of democratic elections among the Nephites, the remainder was charged with a crusading spirit that stemmed directly from the greatest murder mystery that ever stirred New York State."

While the first half of the translation went at a snail crawl's pace, Joseph was rushed to finish the book. The second half was dictated with much greater speed.

Unfortunately, 116 pages of the book were given to Martin Harris the person who transcribed the first part of the book. Harris' wife, Lucy Harris, was very skeptical of the book, especially since Martin was willing to put up their farm to finance the publication since Joseph, himself, was "desperately poor and Emmas was pregnant." Lucy absolutely insisted on seeing the work before giving her authorization, allowing Martin to put up their $10,000 farm to pay for the book.

Joseph was extremely reluctant to let Martin take the translated pages, but finally gave in. Lucy promptly stole these 116 pages from her husband and "neither pleas nor blows could make her divulge its hiding-place."

This put Joseph in a frenzy. He knew that should he re-translate those pages, they would not match -- should Lucy come up with the original manuscript. Harris wife taunted Joseph, -- "If this be a divine communication, the same being who revealed it to you can easily replace it."

Brodie continues,

"The revelations then forbade Joseph to retranslate the first part of the plates because the devil was out to thwart the publication of the book and would see to it that the stolen version was published in altered form. In His boundless wisdom, however, the Lord had foreseen this contingency and had provided a set of small plates, called the plates of Nephi, which covered exactly the same period in Indian history as the lost manuscript. This record was primarly religious history, in contrast with the first version, which had been largely political. Once he had translated it, he could go back to the old plates and carry on, presumably from page 117.

"Although he may not have sensed their significance, these, Joseph's first revelations, marked a turning-point in his life. For they changed the Book of Mormon from what might have been merely an ingenious speculation into a genuinely religious book."

" ... Exactly when Martin Harris returned to Harmony to begin writing the translation of the 'plates of Nephi,' is not known, but it was some time during the winter of 1828-29. Joseph now plunged into the story with ease, for he had behind him not only the earlier practice in dictating but also a fruitful period of reflection. It was now more than a year since he first asserted he had unearthed the plates, and he probably had the plan of the book worked out in his mind in considerable detail. Nevertheless, in writing the early portion of the book, his literary reservoir frequently ran dry. When this happened he simply arranged for his Nephite prophets to quote from the Bible. Thus about twenty-five thousand words in the Book of Mormon consisted of passages from the Old Testament -- chiefly those chapters from Isaiah mentioned in Ethan Smith's 'View of the Hebrews' -- and about two thousand more words were taken from the New Testament.

"Joseph made minor changes in these Biblical extracts, for it seems to have occurred to him that readers would wonder how an ancient American prophet could use the exact text of the King James Bible. But he was careful to modify chiefly the italicized interpolations inserted for euphony and clarity by scholars of King James; the un-italicized holy text he usually left intact."

Several inconsistencies crop up in the stories surrounding the gold plates. A gold brick weighs 35 pounds. It is inconceivable that the Book of Mormon could have been inscribed on so little equivalent piece of gold. More likely, the Book of Mormon would appear to be a book the size now being displayed as a model in the LDS Church Museum on Temple Square in Salt Lake City. In this case, it would have been closer to the size of ten gold bricks -- an equivalent weight of 350 lbs.

When "hefting" the plates in a wooden box "similar to that in which glass is shipped," estimates of the weight were described as "about 40 to 50 lbs."

Another large inconsistency crops up when it was described at one point that Joseph sat behind a curtain and transcribed the plates. Yet, Emma, who was the first to assist in the transcribing of the gold plates had expressed wonder at how Joseph could leave the plates untouched on the table, covered, yet accomplish the translation. Brodie continues:

"Emma was Joseph's first scribe. She never saw the plates, although they often lay on the table wrapped in a small linen tablecloth. Despite her skepticism and bewilderment Joseph apparently had so frightened her about the consequences of examining them that she dared finger them under their covering only when she moved them to dust the table. 'They seemed to be pliable like thick paper,' she later said, 'and would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book.'

"Mystified by his ability to translate the characters without even unwrapping the plates, merely by staring into his stone -- or stones for she said later that he used the Urim and Thummim for the first 116 pages and the little dark seer stone for the remainder) -- she began to take down his dictation."

Metallic sound? Gold, like lead is very dense and malleable. It would make no metallic sound. Emma "move the plates to dust" on the table with their extreme weight? ??

"Martin Harris was a round-faced bearded man whose sad, empty eyes betrayed something of his credulous nature. His wife (Lucy) thought him a fool and nagged at him incessantly about the money he was throwing away on the Golden Bible. Although he supported Joseph stubbornly, her barbs made him hesitate about financing publication of the book until he had examined the plates for himself. He had lifted them many times in their clapboard chest, estimating their weight at forty or fifty pounds, but this had only whetted his curiosity.

"When Joseph maintained his refusal to open the chest, Harris insisted on seeing at least a copy of the engraved characters. He would take them to New York City, he said, to the most learned men in the land. If he could get their testimonials that the characters were truly Hebrew, it would create a great sensation.

"But the characters were not Hebrew, Joseph explained. They were an altered or 'reformed' Egyptian. Since engraving was a tedious process, the Nephite prophet Mormon had chosen this language rather than Hebrew because it required less space.

"The choice of Egyptian for the language of the plates was clearly the fruit of Joseph's reading. Ethan Smith had described the Indian inscriptions as 'hieroglyphical records and painting,' and the Wayne Sentinel on June 1, 1827 had published an account of a discovery of a Mexican manuscript in hieroglyphics, which was considered proof that originally the Mexicans and Egyptians 'had intercourse with each other, and ... had the same system of mythology.'

"At this time the Egyptian language was popularly believed to be indecipherable, for it was not until 1837 that the grammar worked out from the Rosetta stone by the French scholar Champollion was first published in England. Joseph was not likely, therefore, to be held accountable by any scholar for the accuracy of his Egyptian character, particularly since they were 'reformed.'"

Harris took a sheet that Joseph said he copied from the Golden Bible to Samuel L. Mitchell of Rutgers Medical College "and known the country over as a living encyclopedia."

"If Harris hoped to impress anyone with documentary proof that the Indians were brother to the Jews, he could scarcely have selected a less sympathetic scholar. For Mitchell was one of the few antiquarians of his day who believed the now established theory that the Indians had originated in eastern Asia.

"Althought Mitchell gave Harris no satisfaction, he directed him to Charles Anthon, professor of Greek and Latin at Columbia College.

"...Anthon wrote later that the paper 'consisted of all kinds of crooked characters disposed in columns, and had evidently been prepared by some person who had before him at the time a book containing various alphabets. Greek, and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes, Roman letters inverted or placed sideways, were arranged in perpendicular columns, and the whole ended in a rude delineation of a circle divided into various compartments, decked with various strange marks, and evidently copied after the Mexican calendar by Humboldt, but copied in such a way as not to betray the source whence it was derived.'

"When Harris returned, word went about that Anthon had declared the characters to be ancient shorthand Egyptian. Eventually the scholar learned that his name was being used to advertise the Book of Mormon and he wrote a violent denial. 'The whole story about my having pronounced the Mormonite inscription to be 'reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics' is perfectly false.' ... The whole story of the Golden Bible was either 'a hoax upon the learned' or 'a scheme to cheat the farmer of his money.'"

Despite the lashing by Anthon, Harris continued to believe in the origins of the Book of Mormon and went ahead to help finance the publication ... even taking over to relieve Emma permanently of the dictation task. Meanwhile Mrs. Harris "frantic now lest her husband give away his modest fortune altogether, insisted on going with him" to Harmony.

Lucy Harris was so intent upon seeing the Golden Bible that she insisted on visiting Joseph's and Emma's home to take a look for herself. Brodie comments...

"Joseph was desperately poor, Emma was pregnant, and the coming of the grim, determined woman whom they could ill afford to offend must have made hideous the fortnight she remained. For she ransacked every corner and cupboard in the house, badgered relatives and neighbors, and even searched the woods for signs of freshly dug soil. With mingled cajolery and cursing Harris finally persuaded her to return home, and then, taking up where Emma left off, he began to write down the story of the Book of Mormon.

"A blanket flung across a rope divided the room where they worked. On one side sat Joseph staring into his stones, and on the other was Harris writing at a table. Joseph warned his scribe that God's wrath would strike him down should he dare to examine the plates or look at him while he was translating. Harris never betrayed his trust, though he once admitted that he tried to trick Joseph by substituting an ordinary stone for the seer stone."

Oliver Cowdery was next in line to act as secretary and take Joseph's dictation for completion of the "translation."

None of Joseph's secretaries, however, knew English well enough to punctuate the dictated work. When the manuscript went to press "there was scarecely a capital letter, comma, or period in the whole. The typesetters broke up the clauses as they saw fit, with the result that the first two hundred sentences one hundred and forty began with 'And'."

Strangely, and in contradiction to the fact that a blanket supposedly separated Joseph from the secretaries, David Whitmer, a young farmer from Fayette, New York paid a visit to Joseph and "watched the translation process." Brodie continues...

"Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man."

Brodie makes this observation:

"The lengths to which Joseph went to make his book historically plausible showed considerable ingenuity. ... He inserted a prophecy of his own coming, calling himself 'a choice seer' and predicting that his name would be called Joseph, 'after the name of his father.'

"Of the 350 names in the book he took more than a hundred directly from the Bible. Over a hundred others were Biblical names with slight changes in spelling or additions of syllables. But since in the Old Testament no names began with the letters F, Q. W, X, or Y, he was careful not to include any in his manuscript.

"Joseph did not trouble to explain the presence of wild animals in America, and he was careless in his choice of domestic beasts. He had the Jaredites bring horses, swine, sheep, cattle, and asses, when it was known even in his own day that Columbus had found the land devoid of these species. He blundered similarly in having the Nephites produce wheat and barley rather than the indigenous maize and potatoes."

"Despite these artifices he was conscious that the book had many obvious defects. To explain them away he put an excuse in the mouth of Moroni: 'And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also, and if we could have written in Hebrew, ye would have had none imperfection in our record.' Even this did not satisfy him, for he felt compelled to apologize on the title-page: 'Now if there be fault, it be the mistake of men.' This he repeated near the end of the book with a guarded warning: '... and if there be faults, they be the faults of a man. But behold, we know no fault. Nevertheless, God knoweth all things; therefore he that condemneth, let him be aware lest he shall be in danger of hell fire.'"

At this point in time, Joseph was anxious to organize his church. Cowdery, however, "who had none of Joseph's audacity, was disturbed because his leader was not even an ordained preacher. They argued the matter of authority and ordination at length, and finally decided to fast for many hours and then go to the woods and pray."

It was here they received the "true Hebraic priesthood" of Aaron and baptized each other.

"Ten years later Cowdery left Joseph Smith in disillusionment, yet he wrote of this season as hallowed and said of the vision: ' ... the angel was John the Baptist, which I doubt not and deny not.'"

The three men, Martin Harris, David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery along with Joseph Smith were witnesses to the golden plates in the woods. Joseph had promised to let them be witness to the plates. "These plates have been revealed by the power of God." Brodie states, "Following the command of the revelation, the three men signed a statement drawn up by Joseph which was printed at the end of the Book of Mormon."

Brodie continues:

"According to the local press of the time, the three witnesses all told different versions of their experience, a fact that makes it all the more likely that the men were not conspirators but victims of Joseph's unconscious but positive talent at hypnosis. Martin Harris was questioned by a Palmyra lawyer, who asked him pointedly: 'Did you see the plates and the engravings upon them with your bodily eyes?' To which he replied: 'I did not see them as I do that pencil- case, yet I saw them with the eye of faith; I saw them just as distinctly as I see anything around me -- though at the time they were covered with a cloth.'

".... when Harris was a very old man he told one interviewer that he 'saw the angel turn the golden leaves over and over' and heard him say: 'The book translated from those plates is true and translated correctly.'"

All three of these original three witnesses eventually quarreled with Joseph and left his church. None, however, denied the reality of his vision. Cowdery and Harris were later rebaptized back into the church.

In addition to these three witnesses, eight other witnesses were summoned: Christian Whitmer, Jacob Whitmer, Peter Whitmer, Jr., John Whitmer, Hiram Page, Joseph Smith Sen., Hyrum Smith, and Samuel H. Smith. Brodie notes:

"One of the most plausible descriptions of the manner in which Joseph Smith obtained these eight signatures was written by Thomas Ford, Governor of Illinois, who knew intimately several of Joseph's key men after they became disaffected and left the church. They told Ford that the witnesses were 'set to continual prayer, and other spiritual exercises.' Then at last 'he assembled them in a room, and produced a box, which he said contained the precious treasure. The lid was opened; the witnesses peeped into it, but making no discovery, for the box was empty, they said 'Brother Joseph, we do not see the plates.' The prophet answered them, 'O ye of little faith! how long will God bear with this wicked and perverse generation? Down on your knees, brethren, every one of you, and pray God for the forgiveness of your sins, and for a holy and living faith which cometh down from heaven.' The disciples dropped to their knees, and began to pray in the fervency of their spirit, supplicating God, for more than two hours with fanatical earnestness; at the end of which time, looking again into the box, they were now persuaded that they saw the plates."

Noting that four witnesses were from Whitmer's family, the other three from Joseph's and the eighth, Hiram Page had married Whitmer's daughter; Mark Twain wrote, "I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified."

"Yet it is difficult to reconcile this explanation with the fact that these witnesses, and later Emma and William Smith, emphasized the size, weight, and metallic texture of the plates. Perhaps Joseph built some kind of makeshift deception. If so, it disappeared with his announcement that the same angel that had revealed to him the sacred record had now carried it back into heaven."

Brodie makes this observation:

"A careful scrutiny of the Book of Mormon and the legendary paraphernalia obscuring its origin discloses not only Joseph's inventive and eclectic nature but also his magnetic influence over his friends. Secretaries usually have no illusions about the men from whom they take dictation, but Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris were caught in the spell of one of the most enigmatic characters of the century."

At one point the printing of the Book of Mormon was stopped. A Palmyra "citizen's committee" boycotted the book. "When they presented a long list of names to the printer he took fright, stopped the printing, and refused to resume it until he had been paid in full."

Joseph had tried several methods to generate money for the book's publication. However, in desperation "Joseph lashed at Harris with the Lord's word: 'I command you to repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by mine anger, and your sufferings be sore.'"

The lashing continued on for several lines ending with "Pay the printer's debt! Release thyself from bondage." Brodie said: "Thoroughly scared, Harris hastily sold his farm. Grandin (the printer) was paid in full, and by March 26, 1830 the Book of Mormon was put on sale in the Palmyra bookstore.

"On April 2 the Rochester Daily Advertiser published the first review:

"BLASPHEMY -- BOOK OF MORMON, ALIAS THE GOLDEN BIBLE."

"The Book of Mormon has been placed in our hands. A viler imposition was never practiced. It is an evidence of fraud, blasphemy, and credulity, shocking both to Christians and moralists. The author and proprietor is Joseph Smith, Jr., a fellow who by some hocus pocus acquired such influence over a wealthy farmer of Wayne county that the latter mortgaged his farm for $3,000, which he paid for printing and binding five thousand copies of the blasphemous work."

The maturing Smith finds himself living with a philosophy of being a "part-time" prophet. Joseph still likes the earthly things.... sex, money, power, and alcoholic drinks. Too, he was very strong and loved to challenge others to a wrestling match. He fit in with almost anyone he talked with. He wasn't just the ordinary white faced, meek preacher. Brodie quotes Joseph from his journal:

"Josiah Butterfield came to my house and insulted me so outrageously that kicked him out of the house, across the yard, and into the street."

Brodie notes: "Here was a prophet who could hold his own with any man on the frontier.

".... Sometimes Mr. Smith speaks as a prophet, and sometimes as a mere man. If he gave a wrong opinion respecting the book, he spoke as a mere man."

Joseph, himself "often said impatiently, 'A prophet is a prophet only when he is acting as such.'"

Redefining was commonly used by Joseph Smith to explain away problems. When Joseph started finding the earthly pleasure of the women he enticed, he was much more sophisticated to justify his lust. Brodie states:

"Monogamy seemed to him (Joseph) -- as it has seemed to many men who have not ceased to love their wives, but who have grown weary of connubial exclusiveness -- an intolerably circumscribed way of life. 'Whenever I see a pretty woman,' he once said to a friend, 'I have to pray for grace.' But Joseph was no careless libertine who could be content with clandestine mistresses. There was too much of the Puritan in him, and he could not rest until he had redefined the nature of sin and erected a stupendous theological edifice to support his new theories on marriage."

Brodie went on:

"There was plenty of precedent for plural marriages in the Old Testament, beginning with Father Abraham. But it was Jacob's polygamous marriages that particularly interested Joseph Smith, and he frequently referred to the new marriage principle as the blessing of Jacob. He was fond of pointing to the commandment in Exodus: 'And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife.' The sin of adultery lay not in the act itself but in the subsequent desertion. It was the abandonment of the humbled maid that led to the unspeakable evils of prostitution and infanticide."

Thus, a specialized interpretation of a generalized Bible passage justifies corruption, in Joseph's mind.

Soon, Joseph finds himself living a life of lies. Brodies continues:

"Joseph taught none of this (polygamy) openly, for he feared that polygamy would bring down the wrath of the gentiles. Until the day it could be publicly proclaimed, any whisper of the doctrine of plural wives must be vehemently denied, and any man caught preaching it without his own personal sanction must be summarily cut off from the church. Eventually, all the Saints would be taken into his confidence and welded into a force that could oppose any gentile threat, but until then the little lie must be voiced to protect the great truth.

"To break the ground before sowing broadcast the seeds of his new doctrine, Joseph's press published a pamphlet in defense of polygamy be one Udney H. Jacob. Jacob produced a document of astonishing sophistication, advocating polygamy not only in the light of Old Testament precedent, but also as a solution for marital incompatibility. 'What, although a woman is not known to be an adulteress,' he wrote, 'yet she may be a perfect devil to her husband, train him in the most imperious manner, despise him in her heart, abuse him before his children, drive him like a menial slave where she pleases; and he must tamely submit to the ungodly law of his wife, must hug the serpent to his bosom, and love her as he does his own body! Impossible and degrading to the nature of man.

"Such a wife must not be divorced, he said, for 'a divorced man is not known in the whole canon of scriptures.' But for her to continue performing the rituals of the marriage bed without any love for her husband -- which he labeled 'fornication in the wife' -- was a gross sin. 'In ancient times under the law of God,' he concluded, 'the permission of a plurality of wives had a direct tendency to prevent the possibility of fornication in the wife.'

Brodie notes: ".... there is no doubt that Jacob looked upon woman as the inferior species. 'The idea of a woman taking a man to be her husband is not found in the Word of God. But the man marries the woman; and the woman is given in marriage. But the husband is not the property of the wife in any sense of the word.'"

New justifications for polygamy seemed to come out of the wall from every direction. Some specifics on the techniques of the application of marrying multiple wives is given by Brodie:

"The Female Relief Society, which Joseph had organized in mid-March 1842 with Emmaas president, was quickly diverted from charitable offices to the purging of iniquity. With a passion that probably came less from her exalted standards of moral behavior than from an unuttered dread of what she might discover, Emma probed and questioned every woman who came into the organization.

"Assisting her in the leadership of the society were some of the ablest women in the church: Mrs. Elizabeth Ann Whitney, Mrs. Sarah M. Cleveland, Elvira Cowles, and the poetess Eliza R. Snow. Joseph publicly commended them for their zeal in making "a select society of the virtuous," but warned them that "they must be extremely careful in their examinations, or the consequences would be serious." Eventually every one of these women became his plural wife with the exception of Mrs. Whitney, who granted him instead the privilege of marrying her seventeen-year-old daughter Sarah. "The practice of enlarging the circle of wives in order to win the loyalty of influential Nauvoo women was effective up to a point, after which it became highly dangerous. Sooner or later some woman would be sufficiently revolted by polygamy to tell the whole world about what was going on in Nauvoo. Mrs. Sarah M. Kimball, whom Joseph approached in 1842, told him to teach the concept to someone else, but she kept silent. Mrs. Orson Pratt, who also refused the prophet, confided in a few friends, but did not discuss polygamy publicly until she was an embittered and lonely old woman.

"But a self-possessed eighteen-year-old English girl, Martha Brotherton, chose to speak her mind. Brigham Young, who had not been lax in following his prophet's lead, had set his heart on the high-spirited English lass. He took her to the famous rendezvous over Joseph's store, locked the door, and proceeded with the curious, bobtailed, hortatory courtship that was becoming so common in the city:

"'Brother Joseph has had a revelation from God that it is lawful and right for a man to have two wives. . . . If you will accept of me I will take you straight to the celestial kingdom, and if you will have me in this world, I will have you in that which is to come, and brother Joseph will marry us here today, and you can go home this evening, and your parents will not know anything about it.'

"When the girl demurred and begged for time, Brigham called in Joseph, who also urged her to make an immediate decision. 'Just go ahead, and do as Brigham wants you to,' he said, and added with a laugh: 'He is the best man in the world, except me.' Then he went on more seriously: 'If you will accept of Brigham, you shall be blessed -God shall bless you, and my blessing shall rest upon you . . . and if you do not like it in a month or two, come to me, and I will make you free again; and if he turns you off, I will take you on.'

"'Sir, it will be too late to think in a month or two after,' Martha answered wryly. 'I want time to think first.'

"To this the prophet replied: 'But the old proverb is, 'Nothing ventured, nothing gained.''

"Finally and reluctantly they let her go home, where she promised to pray in secret for guidance. The moment she arrived, however, she wrote down the whole episode while it was still fresh in her memory, and showed it to her parents. The Brothertons in high dudgeon took a steamboat to St. Louis, but not before they had given Martha's recital enough circulation so that everyone in Nauvoo knew it within a week. Eventually Martha published her account in a St. Louis paper."

The maturation of Joseph was a reinforcement of his love of money, power, and sex. Each of his troubles was transformed into a symbol of his calling:

"Thirteen years' adoration from his people had crystallized his abiding sense of destiny. Assault, apostasy, bankruptcy, and imprisonment he had weathered imperturbably, for each trouble had been transformed into a symbol of his special calling. Disaster had been a springboard from which he leaped to new successes. It was now easy for him to believe the simplest and most gratifying explanation for his success -- that God had willed it. Without that belief he could not have spoken so exuberantly in His name."

In Nauvoo, Joseph finds himself with a new title, "General." Riding in every parade and appearing in every event, Joseph proudly worn his uniform and cherished his new self-appointment as leader of the Nauvoo Military Legion. Brodie notes:

"Joseph requested -- and received -- from Governor Carlin the commission of lieutenant-general and thereafter frequently jested about his outranking every military officer in the United States. He came to prefer the title "General" even to "President" and used it in much of his correspondence. His uniform was smartly designed: a blue coat with a plentiful supply of gold braid, buff trousers, high military boots, and a handsome cahpeau topped with ostrich feathers. On his hip he carried a sword and two big horse-pistols. Delighting in the pomp and splendor of parades, he called out the Legion on every possible occasion, marching at the head on his magnificent black stallion, Charlie."

Meanwhile, the Nauvoo Temple carried out the sacred and secret "Temple Ceremony." Only the most obedient to the church were allowed to participate in these rituals. The rituals were a copy of the Masonic ceremony. Brodie states:

"The men were stripped, washed, anointed, and then, as in the Masonic ceremony, dressed in a special 'garment' which was held together with strings or bone buttons, metal being forbidden. According to John C. Bennett, this garment at first was a kind of shirt, which was worn only during the ceremony and then hidden away as a kind of security against Destroying Angels. But it was shortly changed into an unlovely and utilitarian long suit of underwear, which the novice was instructed to wear always as a protection against evil.

"The Masonic square and compass were cut into the garment on the breast and a slash was made across the knee. In the beginning the cut across the knee was apparently deep enough to penetrate the flesh and leave a scar, but this practice was eventually abandoned as a result of protests from the Mormon women. There was also a slash in the garment across the abdomen, symbolic of the disemboweling that would be the fate of anyone who revealed the sacred secrets."

" ... A Masonic Lodge was installed March 15, 1842 with headquarters in the big room over Joseph's store. John C. Bennett was secretary. Joseph became a first-degree Mason on the night of the installation, and the next night rose to the sublime degree. His interest in Masonry became so infectious that many Mormon elders hastened to follow his lead, and within six months the lodge had 286 candidates.

When the other non-Mormon Masonic lodges found out about the sudden increase in membership, they were "thunderstruck." The total membership of all lodges in Illinois were only 227. Here, in the Mormon lodge, 286 candidates were being initiated.

"... It may seem surprising that Joseph should have incorporated so much Masonry into the endowment ceremony in the very weeks when all his leading men were being inducted into the Masonic lodge. They would have been blind indeed not to see the parallelism between the costuming, grips, passwords, keys, and oaths. Joseph made free use of other Masonic symbols -- the beehive, the all-seeing eye, the two clasped hands, and the point within the circle. The miracle play performed in the Mormon ceremony differed only in subject matter from the Masonic drama of Hiram Abiff, and both used many of the same sonorous phrases from the Old Testament. Joseph taught his men simply that the Masonic ritual was a corruption of the ancient ritual of Solomon, and that his own was a restoration of the true Hebraic endowment."

All through this era, polygamy is going on behind the scenes; but vehemently denied by Joseph that it is being practiced. One lie leads to another. Not only does Joseph have to lie his way through, but all his secret wives, too, find themselves caught up in the lie scheme.

However, in Nauvoo, the Mormon group is increasing in size. New converts are streaming in from England. More and more, it becomes harder to keep the truth from oozing out to the gentile, non-Mormon group. In fact most members of the Mormon group did not even know that plural marriage was going on among the higher elders in the church. Hints of such were circulated, but most could not believe such a thing could possibly be going on.

Joseph's wife, Emma, knew early on that Joseph was taking on new wives. It was becoming a sore point between Emma and Joseph. Hyrum, Joseph's brother, repeatedly urged Joseph to record the revelation on plural wives and celestial marriage. Hyrum said if he would do that he would personally take the message and give it to Emma, showing her it was a "God ordained" commandment. Brodie went on:

"Joseph replied with a wry smile: 'You do not know Emma as well as I do.' Before the afternoon was spent, however, he sat down and dictated to his secretary William Clayton the last and most epoch-making revelation of his life. All that he had been thinking and dreaming over the past years, everything that he had conceived about heaven and hell and sex, which he had never before dared commit to paper, he now dictated in a great rush.

"After a long justification of polygamy on Biblical grounds, he went to the heart of the matter in a special commandment to Emma to 'receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph' and to 'cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else.' The penalty for her disobedience was savage: 'But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law. But if she will abide this commandment, then shall my servant Joseph do all things for her, even as he hath said; and I will bless him and multiply him and give him an hundred-fold in this world, of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives and children, and crowns of eternal lives in the eternal worlds.

"Then followed a concise statement of the new law: 'If any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then he is justified; he cannot commit adultery.... and if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him....'

"Hyrum took the revelation to Emma and returned some time later angry and crestfallen. In all his life, he said, he had never been so abused by a woman. When Joseph had heard him through, he remarked quietly: 'I told you you didn't know Emma as well as I did.'

"Although she stormed at Hyrum, Emma was terribly shaken by the sight of the manuscript. Sorrowfully she said to William Law: 'The revelation says I must submit or be destroyed. Well, I guess I'll have to submit.' But with the passing days she grew more courageous. however inspired the revelations of the past may have been, she felt in her heart that this was a concoction of John C. Bennett and the devil."

Note: John C. Bennett was charged with polygamy and was branded by Joseph Smith as an example of immorality. (There was some speculation that they were both interested in marrying the same young girl as a plural wife.)

Brodie continues:

"According to Heber Kimball, Emma now threatened to leave her husband altogether. Joseph's mother, who came to live with them about this time, apparently took Emma's part. 'I have never seen a woman in my life,' Lucy wrote in 1845, 'who would endure every species of fatigue and hardship, from month to month, and from year to year, with that unflinching courage, zeal and patience, which she has ever done; for I know that which she has had to endure -- she has breasted the storms of persecution, and buffeted the rage of men and devils, which would have borne down almost any other woman.'

"There was a hard core of resistance in Emma that Joseph simply could not wear down. She pleaded with him and badgered him, threatening and weeping, until finally he brought the revelation home and gave it to her. She dropped it in the fireplace, put a candle to it, and watched with grim satisfaction the long foolscap pages turn to curling, fragile bits of ash.

"The burning was a purely symbolic victory. Joseph had had a copy made, which he had every intention of showing about freely to his friends. But this at least was an end to argument of his part, and to tears on hers. Never again would he humiliate her by asking her to stand witness to a ceremony of wife-taking. Nor would he even discuss plural marriage in her presence. She on the other hand, would never acknowledge one of her husband's wives though they reached the hundredfold suggested by the revelation. Although she could no longer hope to restore the core of a normal family relationship, at least the shell would be preserved intact."

Brodie comments about what upcoming Brigham Young said, "Brigham Young, who had never been comfortable in Emma's presence, swore that 'she will be damned as sure as she is a living woman.' But to this kind of talk Joseph replied with a warmth that stopped the critics' mouths: 'I will have her in the hereafter if I have to go to hell for her!'"

Again, the bulk of the church members in Nauvoo and particularly the new converts now numbering about 4,000, coming in from England knew nothing of polygamy. "No one could have been insulated from the gossip about spiritual wifism, but the majority accepted the word of the church leaders that this system had disappeared with the expulsion of John C. Bennett."

Brodie notes: "Joseph added to the bewilderment and disbelief within Nauvoo by summarily excommunicating anyone caught preaching or practicing polygamy without his sanction. .. He wrote: 'and I have constantly said no man shall have but one wife at a time, unless the Lord directs otherwise.'"

The wives taken in by the high elders were not only single women but women already married to other men ... even some who were non-members of Mormonism.

Not all was peace within Joseph's kingdom. Three of his Council of the Twelve leaders did not believe in the practice of polygamy. They represented thorns to Joseph and the other Council members during the final days in Nauvoo.

Of the some 49 wives of Joseph Smith, some were in their teens, ages 15 to 19. Others were as old as 59. At least 12 were married women with living husbands. "The majority of the prophet's wives fall into three general categories: first, the group of married women to whom Joseph was sealed between 1838 and the expulsion of Bennett in June 1842; and second, the leading women in the Nauvoo Relief Society, who were married to the prophet during the furor that followed Bennett's departure. The third group consists of the dozen or more unmarried women whom he married in the spring and summer of 1843. Most of them were quite young..... Six of the girls Joseph took as wives lived at various times as wards in his own home."

The pot starting boiling over, however, as more and more the non-members realized the lawlessness and lies being told by Joseph. Hatred ran deep.

Eventually, Joseph ended up in the Carthage jail. Here he and Hyrum were killed by a military mob which didn't want to chance Joseph escaping, yet again, from jail.

Emma never did sanction Joseph's other wives. In fact, she denied he had ever had them. She told even her children that Joseph was "always faithful." Despite sworn statements by Joseph's many other wives of his marriages to him, Emma maintained this stance.

Brodie comments: "Polygamy, however, she always denied. 'There was no revelation on either polygamy or spiritual wives,' she said stubbornly. 'He had no other wife but me.... He did not have improper relations with any woman that ever came to my knowledge.' And this was her revenge and solace for all her heartache and humiliation. This was her slap at all the sly young girls in the Mansion House who had looked first so worshipfully and then so knowingly at Joseph. She had given them the lie. Whatever formal ceremony he might have gone through, Joseph had never acknowledged one of them before the world. This was her great triumph and she made the most of it. Her four sons clung grimly to their mother's word, despite the sworn testimony of women whom Joseph had loved and of the guards who had shadowed him when he paid nocturnal visits to their homes."

Emma married a non-Mormon, Major Lewis Bidamon after Joseph's death.

In the "Epilogue," Brodie gives considerable credit to the Mormon church of today stating:

"What, then, remains of Joseph Smith in the modern Mormon Church? Most of the human qualities that endeared him to those who knew him -- his jollity, kindliness, love of sport and good living, his athletic grace, and his prodigious personal charm -- have been forgotten. But there remains his story, beginning with the great vision of the Father and the Son and ending with his martyrdom, a legend without parallel in American religious history.

"But this legend alone is not enough to explain the vigor and tenacity of the Mormon Church. Before his death Joseph had established an evangelical socialism, in which every man worked feverishly to build the Kingdom of God upon earth. This has grown into a vast pyramidal organization, in which the workers finance the church, advertise it, and do everything but govern it. The Mormon people are still bent on building the Kingdom of God, and everyone from the twelve-year-old deacon to the eighty-year-old high priest is made to feel that upon him depends the realization of that ideal. Here as in no other church in America the people are the church and the church the people. It is not only work and sacrifice, but a sense of participation and responsibility that generates the steadfast Mormon loyalty.

"The average Mormon no longer reads the holy books of Joseph Smith, and the only revelation with which he is familiar is the injunction against the use of tobacco and alcohol. Yet he believe fervently in the doctrine of eternal progression, which of all the prophet's tenets is the most endemic to America. Every Mormon, if he thinks about it at all, believes himself to be on the road to godhood. And since, according to Joseph 'a man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge,' a passion for education has become one of the common denominators of Mormon culture. Joseph Smith's great zest for learning started a tradition that did not diminish with time. 'The glory of God is intelligence' has become the most quoted of all his aphorisms, and there is no room for cynicism or fatalism in Mormon thinking.

"Perhaps the most vigorous tradition transmitted by Joseph Smith was the identification of God with material prosperity. The practice established at Nauvoo has been continued by the church in Utah, which controls large sections of Mormon real estate and industry. Financial wizardry has come to be looked upon as equally important with spiritual excellence among the qualifications for church leadership. But the communistic ideology that pervaded the experiments of an earlier day is vehemently disavowed. Big business has become thoroughly beatified."

...

"As one approaches Joseph's birthplace, one comes upon a marker that heralds the proximity of this Bethlehem of Mormonism. It message is too ingenuously deceptive of the true missionary spirit it embodies. 'Visit,' it urges, 'the Joseph Smith Monument, World's Largest Polished Shaft.'

"One cannot say that the prophet has been too ill served by this sign, for it only symbolizes the barrenness of his spiritual legacy. Joseph had a ranging fancy, a revolutionary vigor, and a genius for improvisation, and what he could mold with these he made well. With them he created a book and a religion, but he could not create a truly spiritual content for that religion. ... His martyrdom was a chance event, wholly incidental to the creed that he created."

...

"Joseph in his own person provided a symbol of nearness to God and a finality of interpretation that made the ordinary frontier evangelist seem by comparison all sound and fury. There was a great hunger in his people, and they accepted him for what he set himself up to be. They believed the best of him and thereby caused him to give his best. Joseph's true monument is not a granite shaft in Vermont but a great Intermountain empire in the West."