| 654 go ahead; you have my good good wishes. You know Mahomet had his 'right hand man.'"
This proposition was resented by Joseph Smith in a vigorous letter written November 13, becoming to him as a man, and with the dignity belonging to his calling and station. 12
with you would be against our mutual interest. It can be shown that a commission in the legion was a Herald hoax, coined for the fun of it by me, as it is not believed even now by the public. In short I expect to be yet, through your influence, Governor of the State of Illinois.
My respects to Brother Young, Richards, Mrs. Emma, and all friends.
Yours, most respectfully,
JAMES ARLINGTON BENNETT.
Lieutenant-General Smith.
-Times and Seasons, vol. 4, p. 372.
12 The summit of your future fame seems to be hid in the political policy of a "mathematical problem" for the chief magistracy of this State which I suppose, might be solved by "double position," where the errors of the supposition are used to produce a true answer.
But sir, when I leave the dignity and honor I received from heaven to boost a man into power, through the aid of my friends, where the evil and designing, after the object has been accomplished, can lock up the clemency intended as a reciprocation for such favors; and where the wicked and unprincipled, as a matter of course, would sieze [seize] the opportunity, to flintify the hearts of the nation against me for dabbling at a sly game in politics; verily, I say, when I leave the dignity and honor of heaven, to gratify the ambition and vanity of man or men, may my power cease, like the strength of Samson, when he was shorn of his locks, while asleep in the lap of Delilah. Truly said the Savior, Cast not your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you.
Shall I who have witnessed the visions of eternity, and beheld the glories of the mansions of bliss, and the regions and the misery of the damned,-shall I turn to be a Judas? Shall I who have heard the voice of God, and communed with angels, and spake as moved by the Holy Ghost for the renewal of the everlasting covenant, and for the gathering of Israel in the last days,-shall I worm myself into a political hypocrite? Shall I who hold the keys of the last kingdom, in which is the dispensation of the fullness of all things spoken by the mouths of all the holy prophets, since the world began, under the sealing power of the Melchisedec priesthood,-shall I stoop from the sublime authority of Almighty God, to be handled as a monkey's cat's paw, and pettify myself into a clown to act the farce of political demagoguery? No, verily no! The whole earth shall bear me witness that I, like the towering rock in the midst of the ocean, which has withstood the mighty surges of the warring waves, for centuries, am impregnable, and am a faithful friend to virtue, and a fearless foe to vice; no odds, whether the former was sold as a pearl in Asia, or hid as a gem in America; and the latter dazzles in palaces, or glimmers among the tombs.
I combat the errors of ages, I meet the violence of mobs; I cope with illegal proceedings from executive authority; I cut the Gordian knot of powers; and I solve mathematical problems of universities; WITH TRUTH, diamond truth, and God is my "night hand man."
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