More early testimonials about Joseph’s character

“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.