“We want to build the temple,” Brigham was saying, “so as to get our endowment. And if we do our best and Satan will not let us build it, then we will go into the wilderness and there we will receive the endowment, for we will receive an endowment one way or the other.”
As shocking as it was to have the voice of Brigham back again, even more totally astounding to Joshua was the sharpness of his disappointment. It was as though Joseph’s voice had electrified him, soothed him, made things right again. Now it was gone, as swiftly as it had come. And something deep within Joshua had gone with it.
“Will you abide our counsel?” Brigham cried. “I will ask you as quorums, Do you want Brother Rigdon to stand forward as your leader, your guide, your spokesman?”
Suddenly, Sidney Rigdon waved a hand and said something that only the nearest could hear. Brigham turned, bent half-down toward the First Counselor. Again something was said which Joshua could not hear. Brigham nodded and turned back to the congregation.
“President Rigdon wants me to bring up the other question first, and that is: Does the Church want and is it their only desire to sustain the Twelve as the First Presidency of this people? Here are the Apostles. If the Church wants the Twelve to stand as the head of this kingdom in all the world, to stand next to Joseph, to walk up into their calling, and to hold the keys of this kingdom, every man, every woman, every quorum is now put in order, and you are now the sole controllers of it. We shall call for a vote.”
He paused, standing erect and still, as calm and unruffled as any man could possibly be. Now all the whispering, all the awestruck mumbles and cries stopped. Not a sound disturbed the silence. To the west of them, the walls of the temple gleamed pale and majestic, as though watching over what was about to happen. Then at last Brigham spoke.
“All that are in favor of this, in all the congregation of the Saints, manifest it by holding up the right hand.”
As one single member of one vast body, thousands of hands shot upward. Men, women, children—it was like looking at a small forest miraculously sprung into instant existence. Brigham seemed to visibly swell with joy and relief.
“And those,” he said, with the greatest of solemnity, “that do not want the Twelve to preside, lift up your hands in like manner.”
Now every head in the congregation swiveled, searching the audience for any sign of movement, any one hand raised to the sky. There was not one. Nowhere. Not one.
Though without any audible sound, it was as if a great collective sigh of release swept through the crowd. The moment had come. The decision was now made.
“Brethren and sisters,” Brigham said, his voice husky now with emotion, “with the vote being clearly unanimous, this supersedes the other question about guardianship. There is no need to try that by the vote of the quorums. Thank you.”
Joshua saw Sidney Rigdon, seated on the stand, fold his hands in his lap. Sidney’s shoulders slumped. His head went down. It was over.
Chapter Notes
On 8 August 1844, two meetings were held in a grove of trees east of the partially completed Nauvoo Temple. Sidney Rigdon spoke for an hour and a half in the morning meeting, putting forth his cause that he should be appointed to lead the Church as spokesman and guardian. Brigham then dismissed the meeting and announced that they would gather again at two p.m. for a solemn assembly. The words of Brigham’s address are taken from the extensive transcript found in the history of the Church (see
HC
7:231–42). Amasa Lyman, an Apostle but not of the Quorum of the Twelve, and Parley P. Pratt of the Twelve also spoke at the afternoon meeting, each speaking in favor of sustaining the Twelve. Brigham invited Sidney to speak, but he said he could not speak and asked that W. W. Phelps speak for him. Brother Phelps, who had been tireless in helping John Taylor and Willard Richards run the affairs of the Church after the Martyrdom, rose and spoke, but he too exhorted the people to accept the Twelve as their head. (See
HC
7:236–39.) Those speeches and much else of what Brigham said are omitted here for the purposes of the novel.
It is not clear at exactly what point during Brigham’s speech the miraculous transformation took place, but unquestionably it had happened by the time he called for the vote. Several sources place the transformation in the morning meeting when Brigham first stood up. The official history suggests it happened in the afternoon meeting. The author chose to follow that placement, though he recognizes it may have happened earlier.
Here, in the people’s own words, are some of the testimonies borne about that day:
George Q. Cannon, seventeen at the time and later to be a counselor in the First Presidency, said: “If Joseph had risen from the dead and again spoken in their hearing, the effect could not have been more startling than it was to many present at that meeting, it was the voice of Joseph himself; and not only was it the voice of Joseph which was heard, but it seemed in the eyes of the people as if it were the very person of Joseph which stood before them. A more wonderful and miraculous event than was wrought that day in the presence of that congregation, we never heard of. The Lord gave His people a testimony that left no room for doubt as to who was the man chosen to lead them. . . . On that occasion Brigham Young seemed to be transformed, and a change such as that we read of in the scriptures, as happening to the Prophet Elisha, when Elijah was translated in his presence, seemed to have taken place with him. The mantle of the Prophet Joseph had been left for Brigham. . . . The people said one to another: ‘The spirit of Joseph rests on Brigham’; they knew that he was the man chosen to lead them and they honored him accordingly.” (Cited in Kate B. Carter, comp.,
Heart Throbs of the West
[Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1943], 4:420.)
Wilford Woodruff described the event as follows: “If I had not seen him with my own eyes, there is no one that could have convinced me that it was not Joseph Smith, and anyone can testify to this who was acquainted with these two men” (
Deseret Evening News,
12 March 1892; cited in
HC
7:236).
Benjamin F. Johnson, who was twenty-six at the time, said: “As soon as he [Brigham Young] spoke I jumped upon my feet, for in every possible degree it was Joseph’s voice, and his person, in look, attitude, dress and appearance was Joseph himself, personified; and I knew in a moment the spirit and mantle of Joseph was upon him” (cited in
CHFT,
p. 291).
Zina Huntington, then a young woman of twenty-three, recalled: “President Young was speaking. It was the voice of Joseph Smith—not that of Brigham Young. His very person was changed. . . . I closed my eyes. I could have exclaimed, I know that is Joseph Smith’s voice! Yet I knew he had gone. But the same spirit was with the people.” (Cited in
CHFT,
p. 292.)
Mosiah Hancock, the young boy who ran barefoot across the Mississippi River ice as it broke up around him (see volume 4 of this series, pp. 577–78), was fourteen in August 1844. He said of that day: “Although only a boy, I saw the mantle of the Prophet Joseph rest on Brigham Young; and he arose lion-like to the occasion, and led the people forth” (as cited in
American Moses,
p. 115).
It should be noted that there is no known account by a nonmember who experienced anything unusual. Having Joshua there and having him hear what he does is a device used for purposes of the novel.
Once the vote was taken and it was clearly established in the minds of the people that the Twelve would lead the Church, Brigham called for a vote on several other important items of business. He asked if it was the will of the congregation that they be tithed as they had hitherto been, so that the temple could be completed. The vote was unanimous. He asked if the congregation would support the Twelve in carrying out missionary work throughout the world. The vote was unanimous. He asked if the Twelve could dictate the finances and other business affairs of the Church. The vote was unanimous. With the death of Hyrum Smith, the Saints were left without a Patriarch to the Church. Brigham reaffirmed that this right belonged to Joseph’s family and that it should have gone to Samuel Smith. But since Samuel had died for the cause as well, Brigham proposed that the Church leave it to the Twelve to determine which of the Smiths it should be. The vote in the affirmative was unanimous. (See
HC
7:241–42.)
Chapter 9
When they reached Steed Row, only Carl and Melissa went right to their home, taking Jane Manning and the children with them. Will, Peter, and young Joshua took the carriages away to unhitch the horses and turn them loose in the pasture. The rest stood around, reluctant to part company, wanting to talk about what they had experienced, and yet still so overwhelmed by it that they weren’t sure they could talk about it. On the way home from the grove, there had been nothing more than whispered conversations between couples sitting together. There was no general discussion among the family, partly out of respect for Carl and Melissa, who were visibly disturbed over what had happened at the meeting. Now finally, with Carl and Melissa gone, Lydia asked the question that was burning in each of their minds. “Did you see it?” She was looking at Benjamin, but it was clear she was asking it of the others as well.
There was a long silence. Nathan saw that Joshua leaned forward slightly, his lips parted, his eyes not moving from his father’s face. Then Benjamin slowly shook his head. “I saw and heard Brigham Young give a powerful address,” he said in a low voice. “But that was all.”
There was no comment from Joshua, but he straightened again, the tension ebbing out of his body. His expression had not changed, but Nathan could sense his relief.
“I saw it, Grandpa!” Savannah said, moving up to stand beside Benjamin.
“Did you?” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder and smiling. There was the briefest of glances back at Joshua, who had stiffened all over again. “What did you see, Savannah? Tell me about it.”
The blue eyes were large and lighter than the summer sky above them. The red hair, now darkening more toward the shade of her mother’s, fell back across her shoulders as she tipped her head to one side, her brows knitting together in concentration. “It was . . . I don’t know how to say it, Grandpa. One minute I was watching President Young and then . . .” She frowned, as though trying to recapture it completely in her mind before going on. “And then it was Brother Joseph. I knew it really wasn’t, but Brother Brigham looked just like Brother Joseph.”
Five-year-old Christopher pulled free from Rebecca’s hand and trotted over to his cousin. “I saw it, Vanna,” he said proudly. “I saw Brother Joseph too.”
“So did I,” Lydia’s Emily said. She was twelve now and more a young woman than a child any longer. “I couldn’t believe my eyes.”
Joshua ignored the others. He was looking directly at his daughter. “Savannah?”
She looked up at him. “Yes, Papa?”
“Are you sure you just didn’t hear what your mama was saying? Sometimes when things happen around us, we want to see the same thing that others are seeing and—”
“Savannah wasn’t sitting by me,” Caroline said softly. “If you remember, she was sitting with Emily and Will and young Joshua.”
“Yes, Papa,” Savannah said. “I wasn’t sitting by Mama.”
He didn’t turn to look at his wife, but there was the briefest flash of annoyance before he smiled at Savannah. “Oh, that’s right. But tell me, who saw this . . . who saw it first? Did Emily tell you what she was seeing?”
Emily and Savannah looked at each other. They had sensed an edge to Joshua’s question, and Emily looked suddenly uncertain. Lydia smiled and nodded at her. “It’s all right, Emily. Try to remember for Uncle Joshua. Did you see that President Young looked like Brother Joseph first or did Savannah?”
Again the two girls looked at each other, this time trying to remember. After a moment, Savannah said, “I think you did, Emily. Remember? You grabbed Joshua’s arm and told him to look. I asked you what you saw and you told me.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Emily said. “I saw it first.”
Joshua nodded, clearly satisfied. “Thank you, Emily.” He said nothing more, but for the adults, at least, he didn’t need to.
“Pa,” Matthew said, “Jenny and Kathryn both saw it happen. I didn’t see anything. Like you. What does that mean?”
“I didn’t see anything unusual either,” Rebecca spoke up. “Derek did, but I didn’t. Why, Papa? Is it because I didn’t have enough faith?”
“I hope not,” Benjamin said with exaggerated horror, bringing a laugh from the others. Then more seriously he added, “I don’t know why, Rebecca. It just seems to be that some saw it and some did not.”
With that, everyone started talking at once. Lydia turned to Nathan. “You’re sure?” she whispered. “You saw and heard nothing extraordinary?”
He shook his head. “I always told you that you were the more spiritual of the two of us.”
Now it was her turn to shake her head and she did so vigorously. “You know that’s not true.”
“Maybe it was because I didn’t need a miracle to know that Brigham and the Twelve are the ones to lead us.” But even as he said it, he was shaking his head. “No, that’s not it either. You didn’t have any question about whether Sidney should direct us, did you?”
“None.”
His shoulders lifted and fell. “I don’t know, Lydia. I honestly don’t know.” And then he saw that while Joshua had moved over to stand beside Caroline, he was watching the two of them curiously and Nathan knew he had been listening. He drew in a breath. “So Joshua, let me ask you a question.”
Instantly all talking ceased and every eye turned to Nathan. He saw it in his family’s eyes; every adult here was dying to ask Joshua the question they were asking of each other, but no one had dared do it until now. Nathan could see the gladness in their eyes that he was going to do it for them. And then he saw something else. Joshua had gone very still and his eyes were blank, as if a curtain had been pulled across them from behind. In the split second it took for all of that to register in Nathan’s mind, he also saw the open warning on Caroline’s face:
No, Nathan. Not now.