{"id":65730,"date":"2018-09-27T17:31:30","date_gmt":"2018-09-27T23:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=65730"},"modified":"2018-09-27T17:31:30","modified_gmt":"2018-09-27T23:31:30","slug":"she-told-me-the-whole-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/09\/she-told-me-the-whole-story.html","title":{"rendered":"“She told me the whole story.”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
At the Joseph Smith family farm between Palmyra and Manchester, New York
(Image from LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

From an unpublished manuscript:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

An 1838 letter from Sally Parker, a former neighbor of Lucy Mack Smith, sheds interesting light on Mother Smith\u2019s experiences.\u00a0 Lucy, the writer says, \u201cwas one of the finest of women\u2014always helping them that stood in need.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She told me the whole story.\u00a0 The plates was in the house and sometimes in the woods for eight months on account of people trying to get them.\u00a0 They had to hide them.\u00a0 Once they hid them under the hearth.\u00a0 They took up the brick and put them in and put the bricks back.\u00a0 The old lady told me this herself with tears in her eyes, and they ran down her cheeks too. . . .\u00a0 I asked her if she saw the plates.\u00a0 She said no, it was not for her to see them, but she hefted and handled them, and I believed all she said, for I lived by her eight months, and she was one of the best of women.\u201d<\/strong>[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you should stick my flesh full of faggots [i.e., bundles of kindling wood],\u201d she declared to a Presbyterian minister in Palmyra, \u201cand even burn me at the stake, I would declare, as long as God should give me breath, that Joseph has got that Record, and that I know it to be true.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe hath sent forth a revelation in these last days,\u201d Lucy wrote to her brother and sister-in-law less than a year after the founding of the new Church, \u201cand this revelation is called the book of Mormon.\u201d Echoing the language of what would become the twentieth section of the Doctrine and Covenants, she affirmed to her extended family that her son Joseph \u201cwas visited by an holy Angel whose countenance was as lightening and whose garments were white above all whiteness.\u201d\u00a0 Finally, she wrote, \u201cI want you to think seriously of these things for they are the truths of the Living God.\u00a0 Please to accept this from your Sister Lucy Smith.\u201d [3]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Letter from Sally Parker to Francis Tufts, dated 26 August 1838.\u00a0 Cited in Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses<\/em>, 25.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Cited by Bushman, Joseph Smith<\/em>, 135.\u00a0 [Find better source.]<\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Letter of Lucy Mack Smith to Solomon and Ester Hayward Mack, dated 6 January 1831 at Waterloo, New York.\u00a0 The letter is transcribed in Janiece Johnson, \u201c\u2019Give Up All and Follow Your Lord\u2019: Testimony and Exhortation in Early Mormon Women\u2019s Letters, 1831-1839,\u201d BYU Studies<\/em> 41\/1 (2002): 77-107.\u00a0 Compare Doctrine and Covenants 20:6.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The late Christopher Hitchens would no doubt have found a way to press this into service as evidence for his claim that \u201creligion poisons everything.\u201d \u00a0But normal human beings will have a harder time with that:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cChurch Finding Ways to Increase Assistance to Those in Need\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBook Review: \u2018We\u2019ll Sing and We\u2019ll Shout: The Life and Times of W. W. Phelps'\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 From an unpublished manuscript: \u00a0 An 1838 letter from Sally Parker, a former neighbor of Lucy Mack Smith, sheds interesting light on Mother Smith\u2019s experiences.\u00a0 Lucy, the writer says, \u201cwas one of the finest of women\u2014always helping them that stood in need.\u201d She told me the whole story.\u00a0 The plates was in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n"She told me the whole story."<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    From an unpublished manuscript:   An 1838 letter from Sally Parker, a former neighbor of Lucy Mack Smith, sheds interesting light on\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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