| 368 TIMES AND SEASONS
"Truth will prevail."
Vol. IV. No. 24.] CITY OF NAUVOO, ILL. November 1, 1843. [Whole No. 84.
HISTORY OF JOSEPH SMITH.
(Continued.)
The latter part of January, in company with brothers Sidney Rigdon and Edward Partridge, I started with my wife for Kirtland, Ohio, where we arrived about the first of February, and were kindly received and welcomed into the house of brother N. K. Whitney. I and my wife lived in the family of brother Whitney several weeks, and received every kindness and attention which could be expected, and especially from sister Whitney. The branch of the church in this part of the Lord's vineyard, which had increased to nearly one hundred members, were striving to do the will of God, so far as they knew it: though some strange notions and false spirits had crept in among them. With a little caution and some wisdom I soon assisted the brethren and sisters to overcome them. The plan of "common stock," which had existed in what was called "the family," whose members generally had embraced the everlasting gospel, was readily abandoned for the more perfect law of the Lord: and the false spirits were easily discerned and rejected by the light of revelation.
The Lord gave unto the church the following revelation, at Kirtland, Ohio, February 4th, 1831:-
Revelation given February, 1831.
Hearken and hear, O ye my people, saith the Lord and your God, ye whom I delight to bless with the greatest of all blessings; ye that hear me-and ye that hear not, will I curse, that have professed my name, with the heaviest of all cursings. Hearken, O ye elders of my church whom I have called: behold I give unto you a commandment, that ye shall assemble yourselves together to agree upon my word, and by the prayer of your faith ye shall receive my law, that ye may know how to govern my church, and have all things right before me.
And I will be your ruler when I come: and behold I come quickly: and ye shall see that my law is kept. He that receiveth my law, and doeth it the same is my disciple; and he that saith that hereceiveth [he receiveth] it and doeth it not, the same is not my disciple, and shall be cast out from among you: for it is not meet that the things which belong to the children of the kingdom, should be given to them that are not worthy, or to dogs, or the pearls to be cast before swine.
And again it is meet that my servant Joseph Smith, jr. should have a house built, in which to live and translate. And again it is meet that my servant Sidney Rigdon should live as seemeth him good, inasmuch as he keepeth my commandments. And again, I have called my servant Edward Partridge, and I give a commandment, that he should be appointed by the voice of the church, and ordained a bishop unto the church, to leave his merchandise and to spend all his time in the labors of the church; to see to all things as it shall be appointed unto him, in my laws in the day that I shall give them. And this because his heart is pure before me, for he is like unto Nathaniel of old, in whom there is no guile. These words are given unto you, and they are pure before me: wherefore beware how you hold them, for they are to be answered upon your souls in the day of judgment; even so. Amen.
As Edward Partridge now appears, by revelation, as one of the heads of the church, I will give a sketch of his history. He was born in Pittsfield, Birkshire county, Massachusetts, on the 27th of August, 1793, of William and Jemima Partridge. His father's ancestor emigrated from Berwick, in Scotland, during the seventeenth century, and settled at Hadley, Mass. on the Connecticut River. Nothing worthy of note transpired in his youth, with this exception, that he remembers (though the precise time he cannot recollect) that the Spirit of the Lord strove with him a number of times, insomuch [inasmuch] that his heart was made tender, and he went and wept, and that sometimes he went silently and powered the effusions of his soul to God in prayer. At the age of sixteen he went to learn the hatting trade, and continued as an apprentice for about four years. At the age of twenty he had become disgusted with the religious world. He saw not beauty, comeliness, or loveliness in the character of the God that was preached up by the sects. He, however, heard a universal restorationer preach upon the love of God; this sermon gave him exalted opinions of God, and he concluded that the universal restoration was right according to the Bible. He continued in this belief till 1828, when he and his wife were baptized into the Campbellite church, by Elder Sidney Rigdon, in Mentor, though they resided in Painsville, Ohio. He continued a member of this church, though doubting at time its being the true one, till P. P. Pratt, O. Cowdery, P. Whitmer, and Z. Peterson came along with the Book of Mormon, when he began to investigate the subject of religion anew; went with Sidney Rigdon to Fayette, N. Y. where, on the 11th of December,
(page 368) |
