This morning I should like to say a few
words about things we have found in the
documents in the Church Archives that
bear on the life and character of Joseph Smith.
During the past two years I have
had the opportunity of going through the
letters, diaries, and histories of the
Prophet and of those associated with him.
This has given me an added appreciation
of Joseph Smith as a person and leader.
With respect to his life as a boy,
the evidence accumulated by Richard Anderson,
Marvin Hill, Dean Jessee, 
Ivan Barrett, and others
shows that the family in
which he grew up were hard workers,
intelligent people, but not highly
educated. They apparently prayed as a
family every morning and evening, enjoyed
singing hymns, read the Bible together,
and were very interested in religion. 
The boys enjoyed homemade sports such as
playing ball, wrestling, and pulling
sticks. One neighbor described Joseph as
"a real clever, jovial boy";
another neighbor said that the Smiths were
"the best family in the neighborhood
in case of sickness,"
and said that Young Joe, as he called him,
 worked for him
"and he was a good worker."
Joseph's father, it appears, reacted
against the strict discipline required
by the contemporary religions of the day.
The devout people of his day were not
many generations removed from the
Puritans, and the goal set up by the
ministers of the time was that such that
each church member should become a
spiritual athlete—that is, work
unceasingly at being a religious person.
Brigham Young, who was five years older
than the Prophet, described how he was brought up:
"When I was young [he said], I
was kept within very strict bounds,
and was not allowed to walk
more than half-an-hour on Sunday for exercise.
[In fact, he said], all the proper
and necessary gambols of youth were
denied me...I had not a chance to dance
when I was young, and never heard the
enchanting tones of the violin, until I
was eleven years of age; and then I thought I
was on the high way to hell, if I suffered
myself to linger and listen to it...
The Christian world of my youth considered
it very wicked to listen to music and to dance."
He went on to say that the parents
of his day whipped their children for
reading novels, never let them go to the
theater, and prohibited them from playing
or associating with other children.
In his words, "They bind them to the moral law."
The consequence was that duty
became "loathsome," he said;
"When they are freed by age from the rigorous
training of their parents, they are more fit
for companions to devils than, to be
the children of such religious parents."
The result of this strictness, he said,
was that when children were in their
late teens they tended to "steal away
from father and mother, and when
he has broken his bands," he said, "you would
think all hell was let loose,
and that he would compass the 
world at once."
He left the church and ended up not
belonging to any church.
(I think Milton Beckman
 has discovered that something
like 90 percent of Joseph Smith's and
Brigham Young's parents generation did
not belong to any church.)
As for those who did belong to churches, they were so
conditioned by their early repressive
experience that they felt guilty if they
enjoyed the ordinary things of life and
expressed that guilt in a sanctimonious
demeanor and grave countenance.
It was in such an
environment that Joseph Smith grew up.
But before he went through the stages of rebellion,
before the development of a
guilt complex, the Lord granted to him,
at the age of 14, that glorious First Vision.
The Lord got to him,
in other words, before the religions of
his day were able to deaden his youthful
exuberance and openness, his capacity for
enjoying the mental, cultural, and
physical aspects of life. He thus avoided
the artificially severe, ascetic, fun-abhorring
mantle that contemporary
religion seemed to insist upon.
He was pious, but not inhibited; earnest,
but not fanatical; a warm, affectionate,
and enjoyable personality—a prophet who
is both serious and playful—
a wonderful exemplar of the precept 
"Man is that he might have joy."
Jedediah M. Grant, who knew
the Prophet well, underscored this point
when he declared that Joseph Smith
preached against the
"super-abundant stock of sanctimoniousness"
that characterized contemporary religion.
According to Elder Grant, 
a certain Minister, out of curiosity,
came to see the Prophet in Nauvoo
and carried this sanctimonious spirit so far
that the Prophet finally suggested
to the minister that they engage in
a little wrestling. The minister was so
shocked that he just stood there rigid
and dumbfounded, whereupon the Prophet
playfully acted as though to put him on
the floor and help him get up and then
called attention to the so-called
Christian "follies" of the time, 
the absurdity of the long, solemn, donkey-like
tone of speaking and acting, and the
dangers of excessive piety and fanaticism.
In other words, the Prophet
recognized as unhealthy the mind which
lacked balanced, perspective, and humor. 
In the society of his day there were many
earnest people who habitually looked on
the serious side of things that had no
serious side, who regarded humor as
incompatible with religion. It was common
for these descendants of the Puritans to
see displays of humor as a mark of insincerity,
for humor suggested that nothing really
mattered and that life was basically comic.
To be overly humorous, they thought,
was to be cynical toward life.
But Joseph Smith saw humor 
and religion as quite reconcilable.
As he saw it, once one
acknowledges that there is something
beyond laughter—the core of life that is
solemn, serious, and tender— there is still
plenty of room for jesting. At least,
that is the way he was—"a jolly good fellow"
as one contemporary described him. 
That this is the way Joseph Smith turned out
there can be no doubt. We have a number
of contemporary descriptions of him.
One person, after meeting him, said, 
"He possesses the innate refinement that one
finds in the barn poet are in the most
highly cultivated intellectual."
Another found him a "sociable, easy, cheerful,
obliging, kind, and hospitable person."
Another described him as "kind and
considerate, taking a personal interest
in all people, considering everyone his
equal."
Still another describes him as a 
"fine, noble looking man."
All of this suggests that he had a balanced,
well-adjusted, healthy, personality and that people
enjoyed being around him and he them.
Joseph was confident and sure of himself
but did not take himself more
seriously than the circumstances warranted.
He said in 1843, "I am not a
very pious man [in terms of the superpiety
of the Christian ministers of his day].
I do not wish to be a great deal
better than anybody else."
Then he went on to explain that he enjoyed
being with people, wanted to be with them as well as
in the hereafter, and thus did
not wrap himself in a pious rectitude which
 would separate him from his brothers and sisters.
Emma's lot must have been a difficult one,
for he was always bringing home a group to dinner.
But she was a good cook. "When I want a
little bread and milk,"
Joseph told William W. Phelps, "my wife loads the
table with so many good things it
destroys my appetite."
The Prophet enjoyed his family. There are
dozens of references in his official
diary that read like this one of March 21, 1834:
"Remained at home and had great
joy with my family." Indeed, according to a
cousin, George A. Smith, one
convert family apostatized because, when
they arrived in Kirtland from the East,
Joseph came downstairs from the room
"where he had been translating by the
gift and power of God" and began to romp
and play with his children.
In their view, this was not proper
behavior for a prophet! The Prophet's
journal mentions going with his family
to musical concerts, the theatre, circus
performances, and taking excursions on
Mississippi river boats. The family often enjoyed family home evening get togethers at their home.
The Prophet's well-adjusted
 nature was infectious.
Those brought up in the
strict, long-faced,
pious tradition soon found themselves
liberated so they could fulfill their
foreordained role as being leaders of
the Saints. Converts who had been brought
up with less enjoyment of life and
spontaneity were unfrozen; their
experiences and enjoyments were expanded.
The wholesome healthiness of Joseph Smith,
in other words, brought changes in
the unhealthy piety and smugness and
sanctimoniousness of others who were
benefited by association with him.
Religion was not to confine spirits, 
he pointed out, but to expand them.
Direct experience with the Prophet gave them
reassurance of the fuller and more
joyful life the gospel called for them
to live. Brigham Young, for example,
despite his pious upbringing, learned to
dance, very stately to be sure,
learned to be an actor
(he played the part of the High Priest in "Pizarro"),
and in short enjoyed life and
helped those associated with him to
enjoy life, despite their many trials and
problems.
No wonder Brigham Young said, "I feel like
shouting hallelujah, all the time, when I
think that I ever knew
Joseph Smith, the Prophet."
Because of spontaneity, joviality, and combination of
seriousness of purpose and good humor,
everybody was quickly attracted to
Joseph Smith. His religion, revelations,
and spirituality attracted them,
of course, but so did his person, and
converts did not fail to mention this in
their diaries and letters. In fact,
meeting him for the first time was a
momentous occasion that nearly everyone
who kept a diary or wrote his life
history recorded that first encounter,
as if it were the greatest event of their lives—
which, of course, for many of them it was!
When Brigham Young and his
brother Joseph Young went to see Joseph
Smith in 1832,
"they found him chopping wood, for
[as Wilford Woodruff said] he was a laboring
man, and gained his bread by the sweat of
his brow." The Prophet, according to the
account of this meeting, "received them gladly,
invited them to his house, and
they rejoiced together in the Gospel of
Christ, and their hearts were knitted
together in the spirit and bond of union."
When Wilford Woodruff first met the
Prophet in April 1834 in Kirtland, he wrote:
"I saw him out in the field with
his brother Hyrum: he had on a very old hat...
"I was introduced to him, and he
invited me home with him. I accepted the
invitation, and I watched him pretty
closely, to see what I could learn.
He remarked, while passing to his house, that
this was the first hour he had spent in
recreation for a long time. Shortly after
we arrived at his house, he went into an
adjoining room, 
and brought out a wolf skin and said,
'Brother Woodruff, I want you to help
me tan this.'
So I pulled off my coat, went to work and
helped him, and felt honored in so doing.
He was about going up with the brethren
to redeem Zion, and he wanted this wolf-skin
to put upon his wagon seat, as he
had no buffalo robe...
Well, we tanned it, and it and used it... This was
my first introduction to the Prophet
Joseph Smith... I rejoiced to behold his face and
to hear his voice. I was fully satisfied
that Joseph was a Prophet."
Brother Woodruff had reason later on to
expand that first impression. After long
association with the Prophet, he wrote:
"I have felt to rejoice exceedingly in what
I saw of brother Joseph, for in his
public and private career he carried
with him the Spirit of the Almighty,
and he manifested a greatness of soul which
I have never seen in any other man."
Joseph Smith had a humanizing influence
on others, like Parley and Orson Hyde,
for example,
began one of his sermons by admitting
that he had sometimes spoken too loudly
and energetically and promised:
"I shall endeavor, the Lord being my helper, to
modulate my voice according to the
Spirit of God that I may have when
speaking, and not go beyond it,
neither fall short. At the same time, I do not
want my mind so trammeled as brother
Parley P. Pratt's once was, when dancing was
first under introduced into Nauvoo among
the Saints. I observed brother Parley
standing in the figure, and he was making
no motion particularly, only up and down.
Says I, "Brother Parley, why don't you move forward?"
Says he, "When I think which way I
am going, I forget the step; and when I
think of the step, I forget which way to
go."
The apostasy of people who saw the
Prophet interspersing times of spiritual
communion with periods of boisterous
activity is an illustration of the
teachings of his time about levity
supposedly being in conflict with piety.
In contrast, thousands of converts found the
experience of living with the Saints in
Kirtland and Nauvoo and in the Salt Lake
Valley to be exhilarating. Mormonism
loosened them up, as it were. From the
tense and humorless pursuit of immediate goals,
it gave them balance caused them
to enjoy earthly life, even when filled
with sorrow and frustration.
The atmosphere around Joseph was one of hope
and buoyancy, of optimism and faith, of
wholesome righteousness, and yet there was a
loosening of the strict bonds of
contemporary Calvinism. Joseph Smith
helped teach people
what true religion was, and he taught
them very graphically that it was not
sanctimonious. Not only that, he taught
them that it was something which
expanded their lives and potentials in
the way his was expanded. Listen to the
kind of recreation the Saints held under
the Prophet's direction in Nauvoo: On
February 20, 1843, a "wood cutting bee"
was held at the Prophet's home. Seventy brethren
attended. They sawed, chopped, split, and
piled up a large stack of wood in the
yard, which served not only the Prophet's
family, but also many of the persons they
helped out. "The day was spent by them
with much pleasantry, good humor and
feeling," says the record. "A white oak log,
measuring five feet four inches in
diameter was cut through with a cross-cut saw,
in four-and-a-half minutes, by Hiram
Dayton and brother John Tidwell."
This tree had been previously cut by the
Prophet himself, and he had hauled it to
the yard with his team.
Joseph said that once when he was in his office,
he saw two boys fighting in the
street. He ran out caught one of the boys
(who had begun the fight with clubs,) and
then the other; and, after giving them proper
instruction," as he termed it, "gave
the bystanders a lecture" for
egging the boys on instead of stopping the fight,
and finally concluded the matter by
saying that nobody was allowed 
to fight in Nauvoo but himself.
Joseph Smith favored music,
drama, debating, hiking, boating, athletics,
parties, dancing, and picnics. He liked
going for long walks, horseback riding,
and to get out into the beauty of nature.
Here is the account of his activities
for Wednesday, February 8, 1843:
"This morning, I read German, and visited with a
brother and sister from Michigan, who
thought that 'a prophet is always a prophet,'
but I told them that a prophet
was a prophet only when he was acting as such.
After dinner
Brother Parley P. Pratt came in: we had
conversation on various subjects. At four
in the afternoon, I went out with my
little [son] Frederick, to exercise myself
by sliding on the ice."
One could misunderstand all this. It is easy to carry the
epicurean philosophy too far. One needs
the help of the Spirit in drawing the
line between living the fuller life to
which we are called by the gospel and
indulging in licentious behavior.
The Prophet himself prayed for guidance on
this principle. As with all of us,
this greatest of all prophets prayed for
forgiveness of his excesses, for his
personal salvation. To use his own
expression in a letter to Emma, "I pray that I may
steer my own bark safe." The point I am
making is that the Prophet was also
concerned about extremes—becoming so
concerned about the danger of overexuberance
that one swings the pendulum
back and focuses too heavily on repressing
wrong desires. For Joseph did insist on
self-control and righteous living. He was
not the happy-go-lucky companion who would
let his friends get away with anything:
"The Saints need not think that because I
am familiar with them and am playful and
cheerful, that I am ignorant of what is
going on," he said on one occasion.
"Iniquity of any kind
cannot be sustained in the Church, and it
will not fare well where I am; for I am
determined while I do lead the Church, to
lead it right."
Certainly the calling of prophet was
one of such high seriousness that its
responsibilities could well have
weighted down a less vital mind. But it
was humor which helped Joseph to dispose
of conflicts and problems that did not
really matter. The Prophet was deeply
serious, but he was not solemn; he
believed an unduly solemn person had
lost something of the image of his
Creator. What he was teaching the Saints
in all of this, it seems to me, is something
equivalent to what psychologists
have referred to as the law of 
reversed effect.
This says that often our efforts to keep
from doing a wrong thing are so tense
and determined that they magnify our
chances of doing that very thing.
Paul discovered this principle when he wrote
to the Romans, "I find then a law, that,
when I would do good, evil is present
with me." Our difficult moral struggles
require a certain relaxation and
surrender. We should give the Lord and
the Holy Ghost a chance to do the
refreshing. This principle of relaxed
enjoyment and acceptance of life, rather
than tense struggled to achieve perfection,
fits in with the design of the Lord's purpose,
 "Man is that he might have joy."
This, it seems to me, is one of the things the
Prophet was trying to get across.
And this principle is particularly important
to those of us who are a little older—
as, for example, graduate
students, for it is at this time that we
are likely to discover the gap between
our earlier aspirations and our abilities.
We all have exaggerated
expectations of life, and sooner or later
we discover that we are less clever than
we had thought, and that we have to be
satisfied with less income, less
popularity, and even a less ideal
marriage than we had hoped for.
In an unhealthy situation this leads to
resentment, projection of blame, distress,
and maladjustment. The Latter-day Saint
has an ideal background for coping with
this situation as he adjusts his
ambitions to the place in life which the
Lord has in store for him. I pray that as
individuals and as families we may laugh
together, just as we pray together;
that we may recognize our heritage, its
weaknesses and its strengths, without fear;
that we may develop the cultural
pride which others will expect of the
Lord's chosen people; that we may
appreciate the wonderfully warm and
engaging persons that all of our
prophets have been; and that we may
continue to exhibit that loyalty to the
principles of the gospel that would make
the heavens the angels in heaven rejoice.
And I pray this in the name of Jesus, the Christ.
Amen.
