A New Witness for God: History of the Mormon Church and the Book of Mormon. B. H. Roberts

no question as to the reality of these two predictions, the one of March, 1831, and the other of August, 1842, or of their being of a character to test the divine inspiration of him who uttered them. That they were proclaimed some years before the events predicted in them began to be fulfilled, or even there was any thought or prospect of such events taking place, is well known; that the latter prophecy has been fulfilled to the uttermost, the whole history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from August, 1842, until now witnesses. The Saints suffered many afflictions in Illinois. Their homes, fields, stacks of grain, stock and other property were destroyed; their prophets and a number of others were killed outright by mob violence; many more perished from exposure and disease occasioned by being driven from their homes at an inclement season of the year. In those trying times, following the martyrdom of the prophet and the expulsion from Nauvoo, many turned away from the faith, and it is too generally known to need comment, that the great body of the church made its way to the Rocky Mountains, where cities, towns and villages have been founded, the wilderness subdued, and the Saints are fast becoming a mighty people.

      Footnotes

      1. Doc. and Cov., Sec. xi: 1-4. See also Sec. iv, Sec. vi, Sec. xii, and Sec. xiv, where the same prophecy is repeated.

      2. Doc. and Cov., Sec. ciii, 5-14.

      3. Holes dug in the ground and covered over with brush and earth.

      4. 1895.

      5. A stake of Zion is a division of the church comprised of several ecclesiastical wards; and is presided over by a presidency consisting of three high priests.

      6. The language of General Clark was: "As for your leaders, do not once think—do not imagine for a moment—do not let it enter your mind that they will be delivered, or that you will see their faces again; for their fate is fixed—their die is cast—their doom is sealed."—Autob. P. P. Pratt, p. 266.

      7. Pratt's Autob., p. 210.

      8. Mill. Star, Vol. xvii, p. 85; also, Doc. and Cov., Sec. cxxii.

      9. A temple site had been selected at Far West and an excavation made for the foundation. It is this "spot" that the revelation refers. The excavation for the temple at Far West still remains, or did in 1884, when the writer visited it.

      10. Doc. and Cov., Sec. cxviii.

      11. One of the leaders of the mob forces by the name of Bogart, referring to this revelation, said to Elder Theodore Turley: "As a rational man, you must give up the claim that Joseph Smith is a prophet and an inspired man; the Twelve are scattered all over creation; let them come here if they dare; if they do they will be murdered. As that revelation cannot be fulfilled, you must now give up your faith. This is like all the rest of Joseph Smith's damned prophecies!" (Cannon's Life of the Prophet, p. 285.)

      12. Doc. and Cov. Sec. xlix: 24, 25.

      13. Doc. and Cov. Sec. xcvii: 21.

      14. Mill. Star, Vol. xix, p. 630.

      CHAPTER XXII.

       Table of Contents

      THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY—CONTINUED.

      In the journal of William Clayton, under date of May 18th, 1843, is the following entry, relating a conversation that took place between Joseph Smith and Stephen A. Douglas, at the house of Sheriff Backenstos, at Carthage, Illinois: "Dined with Judge Stephen A. Douglas, who is presiding at court. After dinner Judge Douglas requested President Joseph to give him a history of the Missouri persecution, which he did in a very minute manner for about three hours. He also gave a relation of his journey to Washington City, and his application in behalf of the Saints to Mr. Van Buren, the President of the United States, for redress; and Mr. Van Buren's pusillanimous reply—'Gentlemen, your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you;' and the cold, unfeeling manner in which he was treated by most of the senators and representatives in relation to the subject, Clay saying, 'You had better go to Oregon,' and Calhoun shaking his head solemnly, saying, 'It's a nice question—a critical question; but it will not do to agitate it.'

      "The Judge listened with the greatest attention, and then spoke warmly in deprecation of Governor Boggs and the authorities in Missouri, who had taken part in the extermination, and said that any people that would do as the mobs of Missouri had done ought to be brought to judgment; they ought to be punished.

      "President Smith, in concluding his remarks, said that if the Government, which receives into its coffers the money of citizens for its public lands, while its officials are rolling in luxury at the expense of its public treasury, cannot protect such citizens in their lives and property, it is an old granny anyhow; and I prophesy in the name of the Lord God of Israel, unless the United States redress the wrongs committed upon the Saints in the State of Missouri and punish the crimes committed by her officers, that in a few years the Government will be utterly overthrown and wasted, and there will not be so much as a potsherd left, for their wickedness in permitting the murder of men, women, and children, and the wholesale plunder and extermination of thousands of her citizens to go unpunished, thereby perpetrating a foul and corroding blot upon the fair fame of this great republic, the very thought of which would have caused the high-minded and patriotic framers of the Constitution of the United States to hide their faces with shame. Judge, you will aspire to the Presidency of the United States; and if you ever turn your hand against me or the Latter-day Saints, you will feel the weight of the hand of the Almighty upon you; and you will live to see and know that I have testified the truth to you; for the conversation of this day will stick to you through life. He appeared very friendly, and acknowledged the truth and propriety of President Smith's remarks."

      This prophecy was first published in Utah, in the Deseret News of September 24th, 1856; it was afterwards published in England, in the Millennial Star, February, 1859.¹ In both instances it is found in the History of Joseph Smith, then being published in sections in those periodicals. Stephen A. Douglas did aspire to the Presidency of the United States, and was nominated for that office by the Democratic Convention, held in Charleston, on the 23rd of June, 1860. When in the convention he was declared the regular nominee of the Democratic Party, "The whole body rose to its feet, hats were waved in the air, and many tossed aloft; shouts, screams, and yells, and every boisterous mode of expressing approbation and unanimity, were resorted to."²

      When Mr. Douglas aspired to the Presidency, no man in the history of American politics had more reason to hope for success. The political party of which he was the recognized leader, in the preceding Presidential election had polled 174 electoral votes as against 122 cast by the other two parties which opposed it; and a popular vote of 1,838,169 as against 1,215,798 votes for the two parties opposing. It is a matter of history, however, that the Democratic party in the election of 1860 was badly divided; and factions of it put candidates into the field with the following result: Mr. Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the Republican party, was triumphantly elected. He received 180 electoral votes; Mr. Breckinridge received 72 electoral votes; Mr. Bell 39; and Mr. Douglas 12. "By a plurality count of the popular vote, Mr. Lincoln carried 18 states; Mr. Breckinridge 11; Mr. Bell 3; and Mr. Douglas but I!"³ Twenty days less than one year after his nomination by the Charleston convention, while yet in the prime of manhood—forty-eight years of age—Mr. Douglas died, at his home in Chicago, a disappointed, not to say heartbroken, man.

      Let us now search out the cause of his failure. Fourteen years after the interview containing the prophecy with which this chapter opens, and about one year after the prophecy had been published in the Deseret News, Mr. Douglas was called upon to deliver a speech in Springfield, the capital of Illinois. His speech was delivered on the 12th of June, 1857, and published in the Missouri Republican of June 18th, 1857. It was a time of much excitement throughout the country concerning the Mormon Church in Utah. Falsehoods upon the posting winds seemed to have filled the air with the most outrageous calumny. Crimes the most repulsive—murders, robberies, rebellion, and high treason—were falsely charged against