A Hero to Follow:
Haunting Questions

By Margery S. Cannon and Lurene G. Wilkinson

It was cool inside the Western Presbyterian Church of Palmyra on Sunday, that twenty-first day of September, 1823. Fall had just come blowing in, laying the smoke flat on the chimney tops, but there was no fireplace inside the frame meetinghouse on Church Street. It was not considered necessary to provide comforts in a house of worship.

Joseph and Don Carlos, who were not Presbyterians, had accompanied their mother, Hyrum, Sophronia, and Samuel to meeting. The other members of the family attended the newly built Methodist church in the eastern part of Palmyra. As Joseph passed the Reverend Daniel C. Hopkins on the way out, he smiled and was about to comment on the sermon when the minister abruptly turned away. Joseph and his family had almost grown used to being treated with a shrug and turn of the head, so they quietly walked on through the doorway. On several occasions, men of high standing in the most popular churches of the day had instigated bitter persecution against Joseph and his family. Joseph thought often of the intense bitterness that would cause someone to try to kill him in the dooryard of his home.

He had struggled to sort out an answer. Discussing his concern one evening with his mother, he asked, “Why should professors of religion excite people against me? I went to God in prayer to ask which church I should join. God the Father and Jesus answered my questions in person.”

“The Lord told you not to join any of the churches,” his mother answered. “He even went so far as to say that some of their doctrines were wrong. In the minds of the ministers, that would seem to challenge their position, their authority as leaders of the churches.”

“But the words are the Lord’s, not mine!”

“I know, Joseph. They’re trying to discredit your vision, to smother with ridicule and abuse that which they find themselves unable to silence with argument.”

Joseph recalled his mother’s words as he walked down the meetinghouse steps that morning. A red-headed boy with a splash of freckles taunted in a whisper that was meant to be heard, “Had any visions lately?”

When Joseph turned and caught his eye, the boy snickered and ran down Church Street.

Suddenly chilled, Lucy hugged a shawl to her shoulders as a husky, weather-beaten farmer called out, “Well, I do believe that’s young Joe Smith coming out of our meetinghouse!”

The men began joking about visions, taunting Joseph to argue with them. But he walked on in silence, his mouth tightened around a reply that he would not utter. No use starting a war of words, especially when he wasn’t right sure of the answers.

Lucy’s heart cried out to her son, Joseph, Joseph, don’t let them hurt you. Alvin, noticing his mother’s anguished expression, took her arm and said comfortingly, “Remember that Father has often said that Joseph has a lot of courage for a stripling. He can take it on the chin. If he had a mind to, he could wrestle the two of them to the ground with one arm tied behind his back.”

Lucy knew it was true. She also knew it took strength and courage to bear the humiliation in silence.

But six-year-old Don Carlos was flushed with anger. He backed away from the men, fretting like a cornered owl. Then suddenly he stopped for a moment, his face curiously without expression. When he caught up with Joseph again, he was smiling broadly. In guarded tones he confessed, “There’s one good thing about having four front teeth missing at once. You can stick out your tongue with your mouth closed.”

Joseph chuckled all the way to the wagon. “I’ll never tell,” he promised.

After picking up the rest of the family at the Methodist Church, the Smiths headed their horse down Canandaigua Road toward home. Joseph watched the dirt spill from the back of the wagon wheels in gritty whispers. If only the haunting questions would leave his thoughts as easily. But they kept rolling around in his head. And the constant creak of the wheels echoed the swallowed cry in his throat—Why haven’t I heard? Why haven’t I heard? Why haven’t I heard from the Lord?

Since his vision, Joseph had worked with his father on the farm as usual, waiting for further instructions from the Lord. But three years had passed and there had been no word. Strange, he thought; or is there a reason? It troubled him to think there might be something he should be doing—or not doing.

If, however, the heavens seemed closed to Joseph, the world about him was opening up. During those years Joseph watched the village of Palmyra grow from about seven hundred settlers to almost one thousand. He helped his father and Alvin build a lean-to on the back of their log house. It served as a sleeping room and somewhat relieved their crowded condition. Not long after it was completed a baby sister was born, the last of ten surviving children. So, under the direction of Alvin, who was by then a very able carpenter, a much larger frame house was begun nearby.

In 1822 the Erie Canal that had been started five years before reached Palmyra. The waterway was nearly parallel to Mud Creek and Main Street, and all three ran through the entire length of the village that extended for about a mile.

Whenever he could, Don Carlos accompanied Joseph on his weekly trips into Palmyra. “Let’s go see the big ditch,” Don Carlos would plead, almost before the wagon wheels began to roll. Then his six-year-old eyes would fill with such anticipation and hope that Joseph somehow always managed it.

One day as the two of them leaned on the fence, watching the long, shallow boats move along the canal, they sensed that this was indeed one of the great wonders of their age. “Just think, Don Carlos, when all the sections of the canal are finished it’ll stretch from the Hudson River to Lake Erie, over three hundred and sixty miles,” Joseph said.

Don Carlos didn’t much care about all that. He just wanted to walk beside a team of mules and pet them as they pulled the boat through the water. He didn’t like the way the mule driver rode on his horse behind them, cutting them with his long whip and scowling and cursing.

“Palmyra will soon be one of the most important canal towns in western New York,” Joseph explained to his younger brother.

But Don Carlos was still thinking about mules. “Some day I’ll have my own mule team. I’ll ride a horse behind them and crack my whip in the air and they’ll pull the boat up and down the big ditch. And I’ll see Buffalo and Syracuse and even the Atlantic Ocean.”

Joseph smiled. Don Carlos had his future all planned out.

“I wonder what I’ll be doing?” Joseph mused aloud. “Three years ago when I talked with the Lord, He seemed to have something in mind for me. I wonder why I haven’t heard what it is.”

Don Carlos looked up at his seventeen-year-old brother and shrugged. “Maybe the Lord’s forgotten,” he said.

Joseph had to laugh at that, but his heart yearned for answers. (To be continued.)

The Prophet Joseph Speaks

… Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom, seek learning even by study and also by faith. (D&C 109:7.)

… That you may be instructed more perfectly … in all things … that are expedient for you to understand; Of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; … and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms. (D&C 88:78, 79.)

Illustrated by Ron Crosby