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Source: Church History Vol. 2 Chapter 35 Page: 789

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789 of Joseph Smith, and in 1845 led a colony to Western Texas, where he persistently maintained that the Twelve and all other officers should have remained in the places occupied by them until the son of Joseph Smith should take his father's place. In July, 1855, he wrote Cooper and Chidester, editors of the Northern Islander, published in the interests of J. J. Strang on Beaver Island, Michigan. He states:-

"Now, Mr. Editor, from what I have written you will discover that what I have done is according to my ordination and calling, having acted in my own place and stewardship, and not in the shoes of any other man. If all had done the same, I think the church would have been in a much higher state of perfection. There was authority enough left to have moved the cause of Zion on, if all the authorities of the church had stepped forward, with the many good instructions given by Bro. Joseph, and, heart and hand together, it could have been carried on in perfect good order. Every man standing in his place according to his calling and ordination would have made a firm and sound presidency. And then if one of Joseph's posterity had stepped forth and done his own work, (and not his father's,) as Joseph's was handed down from father to son by lineage, (and he finished his work,) and handed it down by lineage to his posterity, so should his posterity have done his work which the father gave him to do on earth. Then, and not till then, shall we have a happy kingdom.'

In the same letter he claims that he with Joseph Smith laid his hands upon a youth, whom Joseph blessed to be his successor. An old letter book of Elder Wight's containing this letter is now in our possession, and reads as follows:-

"Now, Mr. Editor, if you had been present when Joseph called on me shortly after we came out of jail [Liberty jail, Missouri, Ed.] to lay hands with him on the head of a youth and heard him cry aloud, 'You are my successor when I depart,' and heard the blessings poured on his head,-I say had you heard all this, and seen the tears streaming from his eyes-you would not have been led by blind fanaticism,

(page 789)

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