I have often wondered what Mary and Martha would have written about the Savior, and about the new church whose foundation he laid, had they recorded their witness (or had it been preserved). They and other women play prominent roles in the New Testament, and the men who recorded the Savior’s life, death, and resurrection gave them place in the record. But the women’s own voices are lost to us.
When Joseph Smith restored the Gospel of Christ in this dispensation, again there were many prominent women witnesses. And although most of our public historians and theologians have been men, this time our record is more complete: many of the women who witnessed the Restoration left us their accounts.
This week’s Gospel Doctrine lesson focuses on Joseph Smith’s role in restoration, in revealing new doctrine, and in transmitting the word of the Lord to a new generation. Many women of his day testified of his divine calling. The following accounts of Joseph Smith are excerpted from the recently published book, The Witness of Women:
Joseph’s Appearance, Character and Charisma
Eliza R. Snow
“Joseph Smith called at my father’s, and as he sat warming himself, I scrutinized his face as closely as I could without attracting his attention, and decided that his was an honest face.”
Margaret Pierce Young
“So animated with loving kindness, so mild and gentle, yet big and powerful and majestic was the Prophet, that tho me he seemed more than a man; I thought, almost, that he was an Angel.”
Mercy Fielding Thompson
“I saw him by the bedside of Emma, his wife, in sickness, exhibiting all the solicitude and sympathy possible for the tenderest of hearts and the most affectionate of natures to feel.”
Emmeline B. Wells
“As we stepped ashore the crowd advanced, and I could see one person who towered away and above all the others around him; in fact I did not see distinctly any others. His majestic bearing, so entirely different from anyone I had ever seen was more than a surprise.”
Bathsheba W. Smith
“The Prophet was a handsome man,— splendid looking, a large man, tall and fair and his hair was light. He had a very nice complexion, his eyes were blue, and his hair a golden brown and very pretty.”
Joseph as Friend
Mary B. Noble
“His society I prized, his conversation was meat and drink to me.”
Mercy Fielding Thompson
“To him there were no strangers and by all he was known as the Prophet and a friend of humanity.”
Jane Snyder Richards
“As Seer and Revelator he was fearless and outspoken, yet humble, never considering that he was more than the mouth-piece, through whom God spoke. As the Leader of his people he was ever active and progressive but always modest and considerate of them and their trying circumstances. Socially he was an ideal of affability and always approachable to the humblest acquaintances.”
Emmeline B. Wells
“In the Prophet Joseph Smith, I believed I recognized the great spiritual power that brought joy and comfort to the Saints; and withal he had the strong comradeship that made such a bond of brotherliness with those who were his companions in civil and military life, and in which he reached men’s souls, and appealed most forcibly to their friendship and loyalty.”
Mercy Fielding Thompson
“There was not the slightest appearance of ostentation or conscious power on his part; he was free and sociable as though we had all been his brothers and sisters, or members of one family. He was as unassuming as a child.”
Joseph’s Preaching
Mary Alice Cannon Lambert
“Many, many times between the time I reached Nauvoo and his martyrdom, I heard him preach. The love the saints had for his was inexpressible. They would willingly have laid down their lives for him. If he was to talk, every task would be laid aside that they might listen to his words. He was not an ordinary man. Saints and sinners alike felt and recognized a power and influence which he carried with him. It was impossible to meet him and not be impressed by the strength of his personality and influence.”
Mary Isabella Horne
“I heard him relate his first vision when the Father and Son appeared to him; also his receiving the Gold Plates from the Angel Moroni. . . .While he was relating the circumstances, the Prophet’s countenance lighted up, and so wonderful a power accompanied his words that everybody who heard them felt his influence and power, and none could doubt the truth of his narration. I know that he was true to his trust, and that the principles that he advanced are true.”
Emmeline B. Wells
“He possessed too the innate refinement that one finds in the born poet, or in the most highly cultivated intellectual and poetical nature; this extraordinary temperament and force combined is something of a miracle and can scarcely be accounted for except as a ‘heavenly mystery’ of the ‘higher sort.’”
Mercy Fielding Thompson
“I have been present at meetings of the Relief Society and heard him give directions and counsels to sisters, calculated to inspire them to efforts which would lead to celestial glory and exaltation, and oh! how my heart rejoiced!”
Emmeline B. Wells
“The power of God rested upon him to such a degree that on many occasions he seemed transfigured. His expression was mild and almost childlike in repose; and when addressing the people, who loved him it seemed to adoration, the glory of his countenance was beyond description. At other times the great power of his manner, more than of his voice (which was sublimely eloquent to me) seemed to shake the place on which we stood and penetrate the inmost soul of his hearers, and I am sure that then they would have laid down their lives to defend him.”
Joseph as Prophet
Bathsheba W. Smith
“My testimony today is, I know Joseph Smith was and is a Prophet, as well as I know anything. I know that he was just what he professed to be. . . . I have seen very many good men, but they had not the gift and blessing Joseph had. He was truly a Prophet of God.”
Eliza R. Snow
“His lips ever flowed with instruction and kindness; and, although very forgiving, indulgent, and affectionate in his temperament, when his Godlike intuition suggested that the welfare of his brethren, or the interests of the kingdom of God demanded it; no fear of censure — no love of approbation could prevent his severe and cutting rebuke.”
Mary Alice Cannon Lambert
“I knew him the instant my eyes rested upon him, and at that moment I received my testimony that he was a Prophet of God, for I never had such a feeling for mortal man as thrilled my being when my eyes rested upon Joseph Smith.”
Margaret Pierce Young
“After he had gone from the room, my mother said, ‘I don’t see how anyone can doubt that he is a Prophet of God. They can see it in his countenance, which is so full of intelligence.’ ‘Yes, truly!’ my Father replied, ‘he is a Prophet of God.’”
Mary Isabella Horne
“When I first shook hands with him I was thrilled through and through, and I knew that he was a Prophet of God, and that testimony has never left me, but is still strong within me, and has been a monitor to me, that that I can now bear a faithful testimony to the divinity of the mission of the Great Man of God.”
Joseph’s Spiritual Intellect
Mercy Fielding Thompson
“To him all things seemed simple and easy to be understood, and thus he could make them plain to others as no other man could that I ever heard.”
Eliza R. Snow
“Though his expansive mind grasped the great plan of salvation and solved the mystic problem of man’s destiny — though he had in his possession keys that unlocked the past and the future with its succession of eternities; in his devotions he was humble as a little child.”
Women not only witnessed, but assisted Joseph in his prophetic calling. Among many other examples: Emma Smith acted as scribe during the translation of the Book of Mormon, Mary Whitmer made the yarn which bound the original Book of Mormon manuscript, Mary and Caroline Rollins risked their lives to save the Book of Commandments manuscript (which later became part of the Doctrine and Covenants) from a mob destroying a printing press in Jackson County, Missouri.
What price would we pay to be able to read the personal accounts of Mary and Martha, word for word as they wrote them? The stories of our modern foremothers, and their personal testimonies, are here for us. Do we take them for granted? Do we read them? My testimony of the Prophet Joseph, and the divine power behind the Restoration, is stronger because these women spoke and wrote. I sense the sincerity and energy of their words, and feel a personal witness of their worth.
Related Mormon Women Project Interviews
From Sea to Shining Sea, Missy Martz
“The night before I planned on my unannounced departure, I was invited to dinner at Jerry’s house. He must have been inspired, because he started telling me the story of this boy named Joseph Smith. He had never mentioned anything related to the subject before. Right away, without a doubt in my soul, I knew what he was saying to be the truth. I did not know what was in that book called Mormon, but that didn’t matter to me. I could not shake the truth of it.”
An Instrument of Homecoming, Joanna Brooks
“The Joseph Smith story, the founding story of our religion, has always been extremely powerful to me. Here is a young boy struggling to find answers and not satisfied with any answers the adults in his life could give him, so he went out and sought through prayer a direct answer from God. I was not a young person who necessarily rejected things my leaders said. I felt very happy in the Church, but this example that when you face challenges in your life, you can pray—you can go to a quiet place in yourself and ask for help—was very, very centering for me, very grounding, and is one of the lessons that has really carried me through my adulthood. I love the fact that Joseph Smith was fourteen. And I was never told that he was some special example and that his experience did not apply to me. His experience applies to all of us! I took a lot of strength from that. And the doctrine embedded in that founding story is personal revelation, the practice of prayer. That’s one of the doctrines of the Church that has always been very dear to me.”