"The Last Leaf"

Like Hill Cumorah? — A view of the Herefordshire Beacon
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph by Whatlep)

A new item has gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Conference Talks: “Notes from Stephen H. Webb,“ which was presented on behalf of the then recently deceased Stephen H. Webb at the 2016 Second Interpreter Science & Mormonism Symposium: Body, Brain, Mind, and Spirit on Saturday, 12 March 2016:

Science and Mormonism have nearly always been on very friendly terms, with Church members sharing the deep conviction that, as expressed by former scientist and apostle Elder James E. Talmage, “within the gospel of Jesus Christ there is room and place for every truth thus far learned by man, or yet to be made known.” Subsequent Presidents and General Authorities of the Church have advanced similar views about the ultimate compatibility of religious and scientific truths and, with notably few exceptions, have maintained markedly positive attitudes toward both the methods and conclusions of mainstream science and the advance of modern technology.

***

If I were at home instead of nearly five thousand miles away, I would make every effort to attend this: “2023 Religious Freedom Annual Review: “Religious Communities: Worshipping, Serving, and Learning Together” (Thursday, 15 June 2023).”

***

We spent a fair amount of today in Herefordshire — pronounced with four syllables, not merely three, as something like HARE-eh-ferd-shur — and one of the stories that Peter Fagg told us was about Mary Field Garner, who was born at Stanley Hill, Herefordshire, on 1 February 1836.

At her birth, King William IV — the third son of King George III, against whom the American colonists had rebelled — was still on the throne. Princess Victoria would not become Queen Victoria for nearly another year and a half. Martin Van Buren had just been elected president of the United States. The Civil War was still roughly a quarter of a century in the future, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was not quite six years old.

Mary’s parents joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and emigrated to America when Mary was five years old. They settled in Nauvoo, Illinois. She was eight years of age when Joseph and Hyrum Smith were assassinated in Carthage, Illinois, and, as she later recorded “Mother took us children to view the bodies after they were prepared for burial.” She never forgot it.

Mary Field Garner lived to be 107 years old. It is said that she didn’t need glasses even at the end, that her mind was sharp and quick, that she possessed a good sense of humor, and that she had required a physician’s care only once in her life before her final illness.

When she died on 20 July 1943, Heber J. Grant was approaching the end of his time as president of the Church, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in the last period of his administration as president of the United States, light was beginning to appear at the end of the dark tunnel of World War Two, and the Church Historian’s office pronounced her “The Last Leaf” because she was the last living person to have personally known the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Here is a testimony that she bore near the end of her life:

It is said I am the only living witness to have actually seen and known the prophet Joseph Smith, and I want to bear my testimony to the world and especially to every Latter-Day Saint to the truthfulness of the Gospel as revealed through the Prophet Joseph, that Jesus Christ is the Savior of mankind, that Joseph Smith was a true and living prophet of God, that he was divinely called of God to establish his true Gospel on this earth in the last dispensation. That he was a true and faithful leader of the Saints and that the principles he advocated were true and correct beyond a doubt, that he lived the Gospel as he taught it to his people, that he did seal his testimony with his blood, that I was in Nauvoo at the time of the martyrdom and I did see their bodies returned to Nauvoo to be prepared for burial, that I did view the bodies before they were buried. That Brigham Young and all the other presidents of our Church have been true prophets of God who were divinely called to lead and teach this people as they should be taught. I am glad my parents embraced the Gospel in England and came to Zion. I am thankful that I was permitted to live in this last dispensation when the Gospel was restored to the earth by the prophet Joseph Smith and of being many, many times in his presence. There is no doubt in my mind of the truthfulness of the Gospel and it is my desire to live the Gospel to the best of my ability for the rest of my life, that I may be found worthy to again associate with my family and the other righteous Saints.

(For this account, I have drawn from “The Last Leaf: Mary Field Garner.”. One of the places of interest that we visited today was the so-called “Herefordshire Beacon,” one of the Malvern Hills. A good, concise treatment of it, and of its importance for Wilford Woodruff, as well as for Brigham Young and Willard Richards, can be found — with photographs — on the website of the Ensign Peak Foundation.)

***

I know that some of you perpetually hunger for the exhilaration of infuriating material from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™. And I’m here to help. Consider, for example, these horrors:

Posted from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England