More early testimonials about Joseph’s character

More early testimonials about Joseph’s character October 8, 2015

 

McArthur house in St. George
The Daniel D. McArthur House
159 West Tabernacle Street, St. George, Utah
(Wikimedia CC public domain; click to enlarge.)

 

“The more I heard his sayings and saw his doings,” Daniel D. McArthur reminisced about Joseph Smith, “the more I was convinced that he had of a truth seen God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, and also the holy angels of God. I cannot call to mind that I ever had a doubt enter my heart, since I first heard the gospel preached, which was in the spring of 1832, as to his being a true Prophet. It always seemed to me that if I ever did know anything on this earth I surely knew that he was a Prophet.”[1] Wilford Woodruff’s recollections are similar. After telling the story of his first encounter with Joseph Smith in 1834, Woodruff continued to say that

from that day until the present [1892] I never saw a moment when I had any doubt with regard to this work. I have felt to rejoice exceedingly in what I saw of Brother Joseph, for in his public and private career he carried with him the Spirit of the Almighty, and he manifested a greatness of soul which I had never seen in any other man.”[2]

“During a period, about seven years,” said Benjamin Brown,

I had frequent opportunities of continuing my acquaintance with Joseph Smith, seeing him mostly every day. From my actual knowledge, I can testify to the purity and uprightness of his life, and I know that he was a man of God. I had every opportunity to acquire this information, for, when escaping from his enemies, he has lived sometimes for a week at a time in my residence.[3]

 

[1] The Juvenile Instructor 27 (15 February 1892): 129.

[2] Andrus and Andrus, They Knew the Prophet, 91.

[3] Benjamin Brown, Testimonies for the Truth: A Record of Manifestations of the Power of God, Miraculous and Providential, Witnessed in the Travels and Experience of Benjamin Brown (Liverpool: S. W. Richards, 1853), 19.

 

 


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