Especially is this true of the servants of God. Commissioned as they usually are to reprove the world of sin and unrighteousness, and to call mankind to repentance, they have appeared as rude disturbers of the peace and ease of mankind—iconoclasts bent on breaking the images on which men set their hearts. The world does not love them, and what it hates it maligns—and thence, with the world, springs the reputation of the servants of God. The balances in which they are weighed are false, hence the announcement of their value from that source is untrue.
Judged by his reputation with the world when he lived among men, the Lord Jesus himself would be condemned as a blaspheming malefactor; a violator of ancient customs; a traitor to Caesar's government; one so base as to be in league with Lucifer by whose power he cast out devils; by magic healed the sick and blind and halt; who for his many crimes was crucified between two thieves; and whose body his disciples—being of like spirit with their master—stole, and then sent out the lying report that Jesus was risen from the dead. Such was the world's account of Christ, in his day, and in the days of his apostles—such the reputation of the Son of God! If judged by it would he not be rejected as an imposter? How unjust would such a judgment be! To those who reject Joseph Smith as a servant and witness for God, because he was, and is evil spoken of by the world, I put this question: "May not the judgment you pass upon him—which you base upon what the world, and generally what his enemies, say of him, be equally unjust and untrue?"
"If the world hate you," said Jesus to his apostles, "ye know it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake because they know not him that sent me."6
In the light of these sayings of the Lord Jesus, of what value is the objection urged against Joseph Smith as a Prophet and witness for God based upon the fact that he was evil spoken of by the world? Why, since he was a servant of the Most High, sent to reprove the world of its unrighteousness, may we not reasonably expect that the world would speak against him? Would there not be something manifestly wrong if it did not do it? "Blessed are ye," said Jesus, "when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil for the Son of Man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy; for behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in like manner did their fathers unto the prophets."7
It is nothing strange, then, that the great Prophet of the new dispensation should be spoken evil against. 'Tis an old tale, this slandering of God's servants by the world, so old that one wonders that men have not become so accustomed to it that they can assign to it its true importance, or rather its want of importance. But it seems to be the doom of every age in this matter to follow in the footsteps of that which preceded it—to build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, "If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets."8 And yet with strange inconsistency, these builders of tombs, these garnishers of sepulchres, while they profess to honor the prophets of past ages, persecute to the death the prophets of their own days! Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, they do always resist the Holy Ghost: as their fathers did, so do they—which of the prophets have they not persecuted?
"Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers of the false prophets!"9 Stranger grows the inconsistency of human conduct. The true rejected; the false enshrined! and so common has become the practice that one great thinker10 touching the theme said: "There is always something great in that man against whom the world exclaims, at whom every one throws a stone, and on whose character all attempt to fix a thousand crimes without being able to prove one."
Here I may pause again to ask: What is the value of the objection made to Joseph Smith as a Prophet and witness for God, based upon the fact that he was evil spoken of by the world? That has been the heritage of the servants of God so long that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. Had Joseph Smith failed to have received this treatment at the hands of the world, he would have failed of one of the marks of a true Prophet. Had he been received with open arms by the world, he could with some effect have been denounced as a false prophet; for in such manner they have been received:—"Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers of the false prophets!" The fact here stated by the Son of God is a complete answer to the objections based on the calumny of the world against the prophets of God in all subsequent times; and no less an answer to the objections urged against Joseph Smith than to other prophets.
Footnotes
1. These were the words of the Lord to Joseph Smith when confined a prisoner for the truth's sake in Liberty Jail, Clay County, State of Missouri: "If thou art called to pass through tribulation; if thou art in perils among false brethren; if thou art in perils among robbers; if thou art in perils by land or by sea; if thou art accused with all manner of false accusations; if thine enemies fall upon thee * * * * and if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death be passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up thy way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good. The Son of Man hath descended below them all." (Doc. and Cov. Sec. cxxii.) So also Paul: "Where in all things it behoved him (Jesus) to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted." (Heb. ii: 17, 18.)
2. I Cor. i: 26, 27.
3. I Cor. i: 29, 31.
4. Isaiah lv: 8, 9.
5. Life of John Taylor, chapter 1.
6. St. John xv: 18-21.
7. Luke vi: 22, 23.
8. Matt. xxiii. 29,
9. Luke vi: 26.
10. Zimmerman.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CHARACTER OF THE NEW WITNESS.
It will be argued that the ancient and true prophets were falsely accused, and proceeded against, not because they were law-breakers and immoral persons, but because of the message they bore; while it is charged that Joseph Smith was a very vile person, lawless and immoral, and so odious at the last that the people rose en masse and crushed him! Thus has reasoned every persecutor in every age from Cain to the last under whose hands a martyr fell. Can it in reason be expected that human nature will fall so low that we shall find men who will be so recklessly wicked as to avow their intention to kill men for righteousness sake? Why even devils seek out some semblance of virtue in which to enshroud their evil deeds. There never yet was man so vile, if he retained his reason, but sought out some excuse to sanctify his crime. It was not because Jesus of Nazareth was pure and upright in his own heart; gracious in speech; dignified and gentle in action; merciful to the wayward; considerate to the unfortunate; loving and kind to the poor—God-like in spirit, in thought, in conduct—a reprover of the wicked, a reformer of evil ways—it was not for these qualities that he was hailed before the high priest, thence to the Sanhedrim, there condemned and thence dragged to Pilate's judgment seat to have the sentence