History driven through revelation
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The Church has one of the most dynamic histories one will ever find, said John M. Beck, retired associate director of the Orem Institute of Religion adjacent to Utah Valley University.
"It's a history driven by God through revelation, directed by God through His prophets," said Brother Beck, the opening speaker at the Pioneer Symposium of the National Society of the Sons of Utah Pioneers held May 7 in Salt Lake City. (Please see Church News, May 14, pp. 4-5 for other reports.)
He verbally transported his listeners back in time to the departure of the Mormon Pioneers from Nauvoo, Ill., in February 1846.
"What were the conditions, my friends, leading to the exodus from Nauvoo?" he asked.
Brigham Young, still a young man at 45, "had been tested, proven, a true disciple of Jesus Christ, a true follower, devoted and committed to the Prophet Joseph Smith," Brother Beck said. He had gone through Zion's Camp, directed the Church from Far West. "Now, as president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, whatever the task was, he was equal to Joseph's shoes."
President Young was dealing with the influx of thousands of converts to the Church waiting to emigrate from the British Isles and elsewhere, with mob oppression, with a threat from the federal government, with the temporal welfare of the Latter-day Saints and, most of all, with the completion of the Nauvoo Temple, Brother Beck said.
The succession crisis was another huge problem faced by Brigham Young, he said, with claims to leadership being brought by Sidney Rigdon, William Smith, Lyman Wight and James Strang.
Preparations for the exodus were complicated by the resurgence of mobocracy in 1845, Brother Beck said.
He quoted one poignant account from Alexander Wilkins: "One afternoon in the fall of 1845, a mob mounted on horseback and about 30 or 40 men came to my father's house for the purpose of burning our home. The captain of the mob said to my father, 'Wilkins, as far as you are concerned, we have nothing against you. We like you as a neighbor and as a citizen. If you say that Joe Smith was a false prophet, we won't burn your house property.'"
The father asked to be allowed to go back into the building to get an old family Bible that contained his family genealogy. The mob refused the request, telling him he knew enough of the Bible already. Thus an irreplaceable link in the family history was lost.
