Carthage Jail, an angry mob with painted faces, and certain death faced the Prophet Joseph Smith. But from the wellsprings of his abundant faith he calmly met the Goliath of death. “I am going like a lamb to the slaughter,” he had said over a month earlier, “but I am calm as a summer’s morning. I have a conscience void of offense toward God and toward all men” (History of the Church, 6:555). -Thomas S. Monson, Meeting Your Goliath
Gordon B. Hinckley, the fifteenth President of the Church, testified: “So certain was [Joseph Smith] of the cause he led, so sure of his divinely given calling, that he placed them above the value of his own life. With prescient knowledge of his forthcoming death, he surrendered himself to those who would deliver him defenseless into the hands of a mob. He sealed his testimony with his life’s blood.”
We do not worship the Prophet. We worship God our Eternal Father, and the risen Lord, Jesus Christ. But we reverence him as an instrument in the hands of the Almighty in restoring to the earth the ancient truths of the divine gospel, together with the priesthood through which the authority of God is exercised. -Gordon B. Hinckley
I am so thankful for Joseph Smith's teachings and for his hand in restoring the gospel. We sang one of my favorite hymns today, Praise to the Man. Before we started, I leaned over to Jonathan and whispered in his ear how much I loved this song. He nodded his head and agreed that this was one of his favorites, too. Tears sprung from my eyes when we got to the chorus and Jonathan started belting out the chorus:
Hail to the Prophet
ascended to Heaven!
Traitors and Tyrants
now fight him in vain.
Mingling with Gods,
he can plan for his brethren;
Death cannot conquer
the hero again.
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