in verse #46 : Filthiness, flood wood and rubbish

Alright, so I’ve talked about the text of Joseph Smith’s letter from Liberty Jail for two posts now, and I’m still not done. But, I hear you saying, haven’t you made your point? Well, obviously not, or I wouldn’t be talking about it still, would I? What are you accusing me of, dragging my feet before leaping feetfirst into Walt Whitman? He is the next logical practitioner of the long line, the next successor to Blake. And he is an editor, as well as a writer, is he not?

My point in lingering longer to look at the segments of the letter that were edited into Section 121 of the Doctrine and Covenants is twofold: the editing was done skillfully, and shaped to humanize a narrative that would emphasize the abstractions of verses 34-46, give them flesh and breath, and soften the anger driving them. That wasn’t necessary for what became Section 122, nor possible for what became section 123. I discussed in my last post the lines leading into the second excerpt, verses 7-25. Look again at these lines:

and when the heart is sufficiently contrite
then the voice of inspiration steals along
and whispers ₇my son peace be unto thy soul —
thine adversity and thy afflictions shall be but a small moment
₈and then if thou endure it well God shall exalt thee on high —
thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.^[i]

Notice that verse 7 begins in the middle of a sentence, but in Doctrine and Covenants there is no indication of that. Go back to that last post and look at the entire excerpt. It plays out the pattern of domestication that allows Joseph to swallow his anger and hear that voice of inspiration whisper in the twilight of Liberty Jail.  It’s that voice of inspiration I want to look at with you today.

Verses 9 through 25 continue in this triumphal vein, but stressing the fate of the foes more than that of Joseph and his friends. Those verses are followed by laments for the condition of the friends, advice on counseling, and animadversions against the foes, a pattern that began at the start of the letter and repeats through the first 17 pages.  They end with a benediction over the signatures of all five inmates. This pattern interests me because the part of the letter that follows the end of verse 25, up to those signatures, contains elements that foreshadow the fifth excerpt of Section 121, verses 34-46. That part also includes the third and fourth excerpts, which I will look at shortly. But first notice how this next excerpt seems to anticipate verses 34-46, especially the comments about reproving betimes with sharpness:

and Again outward appearance is not always a Criterion
for us to Judge our fellow man
but the lips betray the haughty and over bearing imaginations of the heart, —
by his words by and his deeds let him be scanned —
flattery also is a deadly poison —
a frank and open Rebuke provoketh a good man to Emulation
and in the hour of trouble he will be your best friend,
but on the other hand it will draw out all the corruption of a corrupt heart
And lying and the poison of asps shall be under their tongues,
and they do cause the pure in heart to be cast in to prison
because they want them out of their way[ii]

The unmistakable elements of self-pity and paranoia should not distract you from recognizing the power of the metaphors in which this portrait of unrighteous dominion is clad — especially because here Joseph addresses them in inverse order from their appearance in verses 34-46. It’s not that I feel that order is particularly significant, but when it inverts later on, the text leads into positive, not negative, feelings. So for now, please note how the next 2 segments prefigure the action of Section 122:

the things of God Are of deep import
and time and experience and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts
can only find them out.
thy mind O Man, if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation
must stretch as high as the utmost Heavens
and search into and contemplate the lowest considerations of the darkest abyss,
and Expand upon the broad considerations of Eternal Expance —
he must commune with God.

Here the admonition to Joseph that “the Son of Man hath descended below them all” is sketched out, not in the personal way of Section 122, but in broad outline. The segment above is followed by a discussion of the thoughts of God as compared with the thoughts of men, which ends in a principle with promise, one very carefully made conditional:

therefore We beseech of you brethren that you bear with those
who do not feel themselves more worthy than yourselves,
while we Exhort one another, to a reformation, with one and all.
both old and young. teachers and taught
both high and low — rich and poor — bond and free — Male and female.
let honesty and sobriety, and candor and solemnity,
and virtue, and pureness, and meekness, and simplicity,
Crown our heads in every place,
and in fine become as little Children without malice guile or Hypocrisy:
and now Brethren after your tribulations if you do these things,
and exercise fervent prayer, and faith in the sight of God Always
₂₆he shall give unto you knowledge by his holy spirit
yea by the unspeakable gift of the holy-Ghost
that has not been revealed since the world was until now[iii]

From at least the phrase “Let honesty and sobriety” to the clause “he shall give unto you knowledge,” this is a conditional sentence. The gift of knowledge is predicated on and to be preceded by the reformation in the Church’s behavior that Joseph enjoins. This excerpt leads into the great promise of knowledge in D&C 121:26-32, which in Section 121 immediately follows the assurance of verse 25 that “there is a time appointed for every man, according as his works shall be,” an assurance that justice will fall upon the persecutors. But it does not follow thus in the letter. There has been a lot of preparation leading up to that promise. And as it was edited, the conditional nature of the promise of knowledge was changed to the unconditional promise of verses 26-32. It is a great and glorious promise, but perhaps we should ask “Can God pour out knowledge upon an unreformed church?” (note that the pronoun “he” is replaced by the noun “God” in D&C 121:26.)

Not that I would presume to steady the ark, mind you. Nor do I need to. Joseph himself continues after the end of verse 32, wherein he introduces the concept of a council of gods and highlights his belief in universal salvation, with a remarkable figure of speech which is the more remarkable for how it is incorporated into Section 121:  here is a part of the next segment, after which Joseph brings the letter to a close. And in the middle of this segment sits verse 33; see if you don’t find the whole far more striking that the segment just presented:

but I beg leave to say unto you Brethren
that ignorance superstition and bigotry placing itself where it ought not
is often times in the way of the prosperity of this church
like the torrent of rain from the mountains
that floods the most pure and crystal stream with mire and dirt and filthiness
and obscures everything that was clear before
and all hurls along in one general deluge —
but time weathers tide
and notwithstanding we are rolled in for the time being by the mire of the flood
the next surge peradventure as time rolls on
may bring us to the fountain as clear as crystal and as pure as snow
while all the filthiness, flood wood and rubbish
is left and purged out by the way.
₃₃How long can rolling waters remain impure —
what power shall stay the heavens —
as well might man stretch forth his puny arm
to stop the Missouri River in its decreed course
or to turn it up stream as to hinder the Almighty
from pouring down knowledge from heaven
upon the heads of Latter day saints [end of verse 33]

what is Boggs or his murderous party
but wimbling willows upon the shore to catch the flood wood?
As well might we argue that water is not water
because the mountain torrents send down mire
and riles the crystal stream
altho afterwards renders it more pure than before,
or that fire is not fire because it is of a quenchable nature
by pouring on the flood,
as to say that our cause is down because runegadoes
liars, priests, thieves and murderers
who are all alike tenacious of their crafts and creeds
have poured down from their spiritual wickedness in high places
and from their strong holds of the divi[ne][iv]
a flood of dirt and mire and filthiness and vomit upon our heads —
no God forbid — hell may pour forth its rage
like the burning lava of Mount Vesuvius or of Etna
or of the most terrible of the burning mountains,
and yet shall mormonism stand.
water, fire, truth, and god are all the same truth as mormonism.
God is the author of it — he is our shield —
it is by him we received our birth,
it was by his voice that we were called to a dispensation of his gospel
in the beginning of the fullness of times,
it was by him we received the Book of Mormon,
and it was by him that we remain unto this day
and by him we shall remain, if it shall be for our glory —
and in his almighty name we are determined to endure tribulation
as good soldiers unto the end[v]

As I said, after this Joseph brings the letter to a close, although it takes him a page and a half to manage it. Joseph dated this letter March 20^th 1839. In his own hand he wrote a letter to Emma, dated 21 March 1839, to transmit this letter to the Church. Sometime between the end of the first 17 pages of this letter and the letter he wrote to Emma, he dictated 11 more pages, which include the text of verses 34-46 of Section 121 and all of Sections 122 and 123 of Doctrine and Covenants. I will take up the matter of those 11 pages in my next post, and what I think drove them, because it goes to the heart of why I consider Joseph Smith to be a poet, in the vein of Haggai or Nahum, though without their conscious mastery of poetic form.

But hold on, I hear you say: how could he be a poet without mastering poetic form?

Your turn.

____________________

[i] From Personal writings of Joseph Smith. — Revised edition / compiled and edited by Dean C. Jessee. — Salt Lake City : Deseret Book ; Provo, Utah : Brigham Young University Press, c2002 (hereafter Personal writings). The letter appears on pp. 429-446 of Personal writings. This excerpt is taken from p. 434. I have, however, normalized much of the spelling (though not capitalization) and supplied my own punctuation — mostly as em-dashes — along with, of course, the line breaks; the subscripted numbers indicate verses in Section 121 of Doctrine and Covenants.

[ii] Ibid., p. 436

[iii] Ibid., pp. 436-7.

[iv] Thus Personal writings; the word is transcribed “devil” in History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Period I : History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet /by himself. Volume III, revised (Salt Lake City : the Church, 1948), pp. 297 (cited hereafter as HC), against which my transcription has been checked.

[v] Personal writings, pp. 437-8.