![\"al-haram](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/01\/800px-DOME_OF_THE_ROCK_JERUSALEM.jpg\")
<\/a>The Church of All Nations and the Garden of Gethsemane can be seen in the background.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
More notes from one of my manuscripts:<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n This was much the same impression that his contemporaries had of Joseph, even late in his career.\u00a0 \u201cHe is a man that you could not help liking as a man,\u201d George W. Taggart wrote from Nauvoo to his three non-Mormon brothers in the fall of 1843, \u201csetting aside the religious prejudice which the world has raised against him. . . .\u00a0 Neither is he puffed up with his greatness as many suppose but on the contrary is familiar with any decent man and is ready to talk upon any subject that anyone wishes.\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 The perceptive and highly intelligent George Q. Cannon remembered him as \u201calways gentle and good-natured,\u201d \u201cconsiderate and just.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 In 1843, Joseph Smith was head of a large and rapidly growing church, lieutenant general in the Illinois militia, and the dominant figure in what may at the time have been the state\u2019s largest city.\u00a0 Yet he was wholly unpretentious.\u00a0 \u201cWhen we all had a social chat,\u201d Jonah Ball wrote earlier that year, \u201cI found Joseph familiar in conversation, easy, and unassuming.\u00a0 I found no sycophancy.\u201d\u00a0 And the Prophet evidently did not demand formality in his presence, tolerating behavior by others that, by the standards of the time, could have been taken as disrespectful to him.\u00a0 \u201cThere are those,\u201d Ball said, \u201cthat came in or went out not even taking their hats or caps off their heads.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Concluding, Ball reported that \u201che is what the Mormons<\/a> represent him to be and the stories about him are false.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Humor is in short supply among fanatics, and is something carefully avoided by most pretenders to sanctity.\u00a0 Yet George Q. Cannon remembered Joseph\u2019s \u201csense of gentle humor.\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0 Likewise, his modern biographer Robert Remini, a preeminent scholar of Jacksonian America and a non-Mormon, writes that he \u201ccame to like the man very much,\u201d not only because he possessed \u201ccompelling charisma, charm, persuasiveness,\u201d but partly because Joseph Smith was \u201cjoyously funny.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cI like them when they\u2019re funny.\u00a0 Andrew Jackson was not<\/em> funny.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n There is perhaps even a trace of humor apparent in his mother\u2019s recollection of his return home after his First Vision.\u00a0 Leaning against the fireplace, he answers his mother\u2019s concerned question about what is wrong: \u201cI have learned for myself,\u201d she recalls him saying, \u201cthat Presbyterianism is not true.\u201d[6]<\/a>\u00a0 Rather an understatement of what had just occurred.\u00a0 But, notes Professor King, \u201cWe have to remember that his mother had joined the Presbyterian Church shortly before this.\u00a0 How do you assess that as a conversation between a fourteen-year-old and his mother?\u00a0 All mothers know that sort of thing really happens to them with their teenagers.\u201d[7]<\/a> Nonetheless, Joseph\u2019s mother, Lucy Mack Smith, remembered him at the age of fourteen as \u201ca remarkably quiet, well disposed child,\u201d although she insists that, prior to that age, there was nothing unusual in his childhood.[8]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Susannah Taggart and George W. Taggart, letter of 6 September and 10 September 1843 to Albert Taggart, Samuel W. Taggart, and Henry C. Taggart.\u00a0 The relevant text is given on pages 171 and 173 of Ronald O. Barney, \u201c\u2019A Man That You Could Not Help Likeing\u2019: Joseph Smith and Nauvoo Portrayed in a Letter by Susannah and George W. Taggart,\u201d BYU Studies<\/em> 40\/2 (2001): 165-179.\u00a0 I have standardized the spelling and punctuation.<\/span><\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Cannon, Life of Joseph Smith the Prophet<\/em>, 343.<\/span><\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Jonah Randolph Ball, letter of 15 January 1843 to \u201cDear Brother [Harvey Howard] and Sister.\u201d\u00a0 Cited in Barney, \u201c\u2019A Man That You Could Not Help Likeing,\u2019\u201d 178 note 41.\u00a0 I have standardized the spelling and punctuation.<\/span><\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Cannon, Life of Joseph Smith the Prophet<\/em>, 342.<\/span><\/p>\n [5]<\/a> As quoted by Dennis Lythgoe, \u201cWriter finds \u2018his Joseph,\u2019\u201d Salt Lake City Deseret News<\/em> (13 October 2002), E10.<\/span><\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Joseph Smith \u2013 History 1:20.<\/span><\/p>\n [7]<\/a> King, \u201cJoseph Smith as a Writer,\u201d 291.<\/span><\/p>\n [8]<\/a> Lucy\u2019s Book<\/em>, 329.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA Mormon guy told me that Mormon church<\/a> pastors and elders don\u2019t get salaries. Is it true? If it is, then where do they spend all the money of people\u2019s tithe?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n You can read the very well done answer to this question here:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.quora.com\/A-Mormon-guy-told-me-that-Mormon-church-pastors-and-elders-dont-get-salaries-Is-it-true-If-it-is-then-where-do-they-spend-all-the-money-of-people\u2019s-tithe\/answer\/David-C-Maness?share=7542d012&srid=hy6aK<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n From Taylor Halverson and Doug Witney:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n