To Seal Their Testimony

There were two witnesses to the deaths of Hyrum and Joseph in Carthage Jail on June 27, 1844. The announcement of the martyrdom says this, “John Taylor and Willard Richards, two of the Twelve, were the only persons in the room at the time; the former was wounded in a savage manner with four balls, but has since recovered; the latter, through the providence of God, escaped, without even a hole in his robe” (Doctrine and Covenants 135:2). That Williard Richards didn’t have even a hole in his robe was a fulfillment of a prophecy that Joseph had made “that the time would come that the balls would fly around [Willard Richards] like hail, and he should see his friends fall on the right and on the left, but that there should not be a hole in his garment.” I wondered today at the fact that of these two witnesses, Willard Richards was spared completely and John Taylor was seriously wounded. John Taylor might have been bitter that he was hurt and Willard Richards wasn’t, but I don’t think he saw it that way. In fact, John Taylor was helped because Willard Richards was not hurt. Willard was able to get him out and to a nearby hotel. The Saints book recounts, “John Taylor, on the other hand, hovered between life and death in a hotel in Carthage, too injured to leave town. The night before, Willard and John had written a short letter to the Saints, pleading with them not to retaliate for Joseph and Hyrum’s murder. When Willard finished the letter, John had been so weak from blood loss that he could scarcely sign his name to it.” John Taylor of course did survive and would live many more years and become the 3^rd president of the Church. I don’t know why exactly he suffered because of the Carthage experience and Willard Richards did not, but it did not diminish his testimony of the Lord’s work or the divine mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith. He would declare about twenty years later, “If there is no other man under the heavens that knows that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God I do, and I bear testimony of it to God, angels and men.”

                One of the things that John Tayolor did shortly after was to help write the eulogy of Joseph and Hyrum that became section 135 of the Doctrine and Covenants (though he may not have been the only author). Interestingly, the authors of this document did give a reason why these two brothers were martyred. They wrote, “To seal the testimony of this book and the Book of Mormon, we announce the martyrdom of Joseph Smith the Prophet, and Hyrum Smith the Patriarch…. The reader in every nation will be reminded that the Book of Mormon, and this book of Doctrine and Covenants of the church, cost the best blood of the nineteenth century to bring them forth for the salvation of a ruined world” (v1, 6). They died to seal their testimony of the word of God, in particular the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. This document recounts how Hyrum quoted from the Book of Mormon (Ether 12) as they went to Carthage, showing us how even in their final moments they believed in and read from this sacred book of scriptures. And it is also interesting that at the time of the martyrdom, the Church was working on publishing a new edition of the revelations of Joseph Smith, and what is now section 135 was added at the last minute. One historian described,  “Doctrine and Covenants 135 was written to mark the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith in Carthage Jail on June 27, 1844. It was first published just a few months after the martyrdom in the 1844 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. This edition of the Doctrine and Covenants was nearly complete when Joseph and Hyrum were killed, and the printers could only include this section (published in the 1844 edition as section 111) in the Doctrine and Covenants by using a smaller typeface than was used in the rest of volume.” Thus we might think of the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants as “book” ends to the work of Joseph Smtih, with the former published days before the Church was first organized and the latter published (again) only a few months after Joseph died. We give thanks especially for the Prophet Joseph’s role in revealing to us the word of God through modern scripture: “In the short space of twenty years, he has brought forth the Book of Mormon, which he translated by the gift and power of God, and has been the means of publishing it on two continents; has sent the fulness of the everlasting gospel, which it contained, to the four quarters of the earth; has brought forth the revelations and commandments which compose this book of Doctrine and Covenants, and many other wise documents and instructions for the benefit of the children of men” (Doctrine and Covenants 135:3).