| 286 and gone since its utterance, yet no other apostle's voice to this day has dared, in public, to confirm or deny what the president of their quorum proclaimed in their name to the 'saints of God in the last days and to all people. 1 It is the historian's duty now to speak and declare the truth.
"Before leaving England, and while filling the office of Managing Editor of the Latter Day Saints' Millennial Star, I resolved to write and publish the history of the Prophet Joseph. Hence as soon as I arrived in Salt Lake City, in 1861, I sought labor on the personal journals of Wilford Woodruff and George A. Smith, boldly and frankly telling these two official historians that I should write and publish the history of the church, for the Lord had called me to this work. For this I needed their private journals and professional employment on Wilford Woodruff's history. Wilford gave me employment and trusted me with the wonderful journals of his own ministry and the latter day work. For eighteen months I daily labored on those journals, transforming them into a regular 'Autobiography of Wilford Woodruff.' I had come to the close of the year 1847, recording the very minutes of the Quorum of the Twelve, of those identical Grand Councils in which the choosing of the First Presidency was broached, and in which the Twelve did actually, by all the forms of motion and vote, set up the First Presidency, in the persons of Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Willard Richards.
"I knew Wilford would speak the truth. A lie is not in the man's nature. I knew he would tell me the truth if interrogated on the witness of his journals, however much he might desire to cover the solemn falsehood of the president of his quorum.
"We were together. I was reading from his Autobiography. Apostle Woodruff was, with his journal in hand, checking my transcript. Suddenly I stopped, and with impetuous indignation said:-
"'Wilford, I always believed Orson Hyde bore a false testimony, and now I know he did!'
1 Mr. Tullidge evidently overlooked the statement of Brigham Young, just quoted.
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