That Noble Magnificent Journey

Shell B. Abegglen

Description

This is the spellbinding chronicle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ religious dawning and their beginning in the idyllic woods of New York state. It then follows their most challenging odyssey as they are driven out of their homes by great cruelty from four different states, and then finally completely out of the union itself. In the middle of the winter, women, children, and men were forced to cross the frozen Mississippi and head for their new home in the rocky mountains of Utah. After a year and a half of many trials on the trail, they finally made it to the great basin and settled alongside the Great Salt Lake to build a city. Fifty years later Utah became a most beautiful state of the union.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse
• Date de parution: 06 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665569682
• Langue: English

Extrait

THAT NOBLE MAGNIFICENT JOURNEY
 
From Palmyra to the Great Salt Lake
 
 
 
Shell B. Abegglen
 
 
 
 
 

 
AuthorHouse™
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© 2022 Shell B. Abegglen. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
Published by AuthorHouse 08/29/2022
 
ISBN: 978-1-6655-6969-9 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-6968-2 (e)
 
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
Contents
Author’s Note
Chapter 1The Impetus
Chapter 2Three Years Later
Chapter 3The Gold Plates
Chapter 4The New Church Of Christ Begins
Chapter 5Joseph’s Arrests And Other Diversions
Chapter 6Starting New In Kirtland
Chapter 7Troubled Times In Missouri
Chapter 8The Enigma Of Zion’s Camp
Chapter 9The Glory Days Of Kirtland
Chapter 10Dark Shadows Over Kirtland
Chapter 11Increasing Distress In Missouri
Chapter 12The Final Days Of Far West
Chapter 13Captivity & Escape
Chapter 14New Beginnings In Illinois
Chapter 15Nauvoo Becomes A City
Chapter 16Persecution Subversion And Betrayal
Chapter 17Mummies And Plural Wives
Chapter 18No Redress, Evil Plots, New Doctrine
Chapter 19A City On The Edge
Chapter 20The Final Days Of A Prophet
Chapter 21The Prophet Is Gone-What Now?
Chapter 22Persecution Reprised
Chapter 23Leaving Nauvoo
Chapter 24The Final Journey
Chapter 25Epilogue: Statehood
Author’s Note
T he story of Joseph Smith is a most remarkable story, and to SEVENTEEN MILLION PEOPLE, it is one of the most important stories since the birth, life, and the atonement of Jesus Christ. The boy Joseph’s first vision and the establishment of the new church that would become “The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” is a sacred event for millions of Church members scattered around the entire world. The early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the life of Joseph Smith are inextricably intertwined in a fateful and historic series of events. This is a fascinating story of visions, angels, gold bibles, exotic ancient records, forgotten civilizations, merciless discrimination, sham trials, and the unjustified persecution and oppression of a religiously devout and innocent people.
Joseph Smith and his faithful followers were persecuted for 16 years, unremittingly from 1830 to 1846, and were compelled to leave one beautifully settled community after another as they were violently forced into leaving behind their well-kept homes and their valuable property without any compensation whatsoever. They were hounded, persecuted, and driven out of upper state New York, Kirtland Ohio, Western Missouri, and Nauvoo Illinois, and then finally, virtually out of the Union itself. These unjustifiable expulsions were brought about through the many concerted efforts of callous and very violent vigilantes, intolerant self-righteous religious hypocrites, anti-Mormon news papers, misinformed and biased politicians, merciless state militias, and marauding mobs who used threats, vandalism, beatings, rape, arson, and sometimes, even cold-blooded murder to drive the Mormons from their own homes.
At no time was there ever any kind of recompenses for their property losses, or the many injustices, and the persecutions that had been perpetrated upon a just and honorable people. Ironically enough, in America where the “Bill of Rights” was inspired and written to protect the basic principles of freedom of speech and religion for all its citizens, the Mormons have been the only American citizens in the history of the United States that have ever had an “extermination order” executed against them by an elected state government official specifically because of their religious faith. For whatever reason, it took another 138 years for the authorities in Missouri to officially recognize the justice in rescinding the infamous “extermination order,” which was finally withdrawn in 1976.
In this free nation, which was originally sought out by the pilgrims for the very purpose of having a “Free Land” where the right to “Religious Freedom” was a priority, it seems like a significant lax in justice for any group of individuals to deliberately persecute any other group of American citizens solely because of their religious faith. It is simply contradictory to the basic dream and principle of living in America where all its citizens can enjoy freedom of speech and religion. The faithful members of The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who have never had any desires other than to live their religion and raise their families in peace, and who have never had any kind of inclination or desire to mistreat anyone else, have found this historical unjustified persecution and blind unfounded prejudice an unexplained mystery.
*        *        *
Chapter One THE IMPETUS
*        *        *
O ne thousand eight hundred and twenty years after Christ had walked the streets of Palestine, a young farm boy in America’s upper state New York walked into the woods near his home to pray. Having been inspired by some provocative words from his mother’s Bible, he was prompted to make supplication to the divine being when he read in James 1:5 that “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” So he did just that, and when he came out of those woods, his life and world would forever be profoundly changed. And so would the future lives of more than 17,000,000 people around the world after hearing the Joseph Smith story, and being inspired by what Joseph had heard and seen in that sacred grove as it was introduced to him by God in those idyllic woods of New York State. This then was the very beginning of the restoration of “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.”
During the growing up years of Joseph Smith in the early 1800’s, there was a very energetic religious revival making its way throughout New England, particularly in upper state New York. The area was so inundated with religious revivals that it was dubbed the “burnt-over” district. Joseph himself described the overly zealous religious debates as being a “tumult of opinions.” The heated arguments were everywhere as each religion attempted to disprove the tenets of one religion while extolling the virtues of their own.
In Joseph’s own family, four of them had joined with the Presbyterians, while the rest of the family including Joseph had not made up their minds. In his thinking, the answer to the far-reaching question of what church to join was much too important to leave it up to any heated debates or dispirited arguing, and so that’s when Joseph decided to make that fated walk into the woods to find out for himself just which church among them all was the true church of Christ.
And so it was right there in that quite serene grove of trees as he knelt in humble prayer that he was suddenly without warning completely seized upon by an overpowering dark force, which rendered him without physical strength and left him unable to speak. Just when he thought he would surely succumb to an inevitable death by some suffocating and fiendish dark evil force, he desperately pleaded with God to save him from what seemed to be certain destruction.
Almost immediately, there was a wondrous and mitigating relief from the hold of this dark power as a pillar of light manifested itself over his head and two personages so bright and glorious that their description defied all words appeared before him. One of them spoke saying, “This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him.”
When Joseph was finally able to compose himself, he asked the question that had brought him to the woods in the first place, which was which church should he join? To his surprise, the voice of the one that had been called “The Son” said that he should join none of them; because “They draw near to Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.” Along with this surprising answer and among other things related to the boy, the personage added that “all the creeds were an abomination” and their proponents are corrupt in their beliefs. The personage also declared; “They teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of Godliness, but in reality they deny the power thereof.” Joseph was simply amazed by this declaration and later wrote; “for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong.” - 1a
After this surprising revelation, the divine being who was called “The Son” once again commanded Joseph to join none of the churches. Then without the aid of any melodious trumpets or the accompaniment of heavenly angels making their celestial announcements, the two divine beings, “The Son” and “The Father” disappeared in an exceedingly bright light up through a conduit into the heavens.
This holy and extraordinary appearance as it was presented before the eyes of Joseph Smith that morning had unveiled to him two divine and comp